Tales of a Crossover
by Zerodone
Summary: In order to save humanity from malevolence once and for all, Velvet once again dons the cape as the Lord of Calamity. Now if only her son would stop interfering with her plans on every possible occasion...
1. Chapter 1

~If someone would have told me I would be ruling over an empire a thousand years ago, I would have probably ignored or devoured them on the spot. I guess it's right what they say: Reality is stranger than fiction.

I have decided to start writing this diary because I am afraid I will go insane if I spend another night brooding over plans, what ifs, unanswered questions, the future, my Empire… and my son.

My son… I'm not sure if I'm even allowed to call him that. After all, I am probably the worst mother in the world. I abandoned him, when he was just a baby, gave him away to an old Malak or rather Seraph as they're called nowadays. It's not like I wanted to give him away and under any other circumstances, I would have taken him with me. But not like this, not as long as somebody is able to take advantage of him in order to get to me. What a petty excuse. It is my very own fault that almost everyone on this land wants to have my head. I could have gone another route, I should have gone another route, one that costs less human lives. But of course, once again I act out of my own selfishness. The life of my son is worth more than the lives of the hundreds of peoples, which I have devoured. But I have the hope that one day I can reconnect with my son and explain everything to him. He will undoubtedly be disgusted by my actions and hate me for what I have done, but he deserves to know the truth.

Which makes my current predicament all the more irritating. Sorey, the gentle shepherd. Honestly, the first time I heard this specific word combination, I wanted to smack my head against the next best wall repeatedly. My own son, who I had assumed lived a happy life in the safety of Elysium decided to come and explore the world. In all honesty, I was half-expecting this to happen one day. I know I would want to know more about my own kind if I lived my entire life with Malakhim. I mean seraphim.

What I wasn't expecting was for him to become the shepherd and thus my arch-enemy. I believe this is some kind of cruel revenge plot from the four Empyreans, either from almost destroying the world or from giving them a rather rude awakening 1000 years ago.

I guess it's partially my fault. When I heard that Princess Alisha planned on holding the Sacred Blade Festival, I wasn't too worried. In all actuality, I was looking forward to this, since it could bring forth another Shepherd. Hopefully, one that was nothing like Artorius, but I could always devour them if that would be the case. The best case scenario in my mind had been that I would be able to use the Shepherd to achieve my own goals. And in case that didn't work, well one of the few positives of being a Therion is that I never have to worry about gaining weight.

But of course, fate had other plans. Of all the people present in Hyland on that day, it had to be my son who made a pact with the Seraph Lailah, who served who knows how many Shepherds in the past. With her help, Sorey quickly became accustomed to his new powers and almost immediately began helping the people of Hyland.

As a mother, I am proud of his accomplishments. But as the Lord of Calamity, he's giving me an even worse headache than Melchior did with his illusionary artes. My plans are threatened to be thrown off the rail completely and I cannot explain the situation to him without endangering him more than he already is. The only things giving me some sort of solitude are Zaveid, who has accepted in becoming one of the sub-lords and Symonne, who looks after my son whenever she has the opportunity. I am truly lucky having such loyal allies as them. No, ally is the wrong word. It's what my old self would have called them if she had a good day. Those two are not my allies. They're my friends. My only friends, I have left in this world that is slowly being swallowed by chaos. Everyone else is either planning to betray me or too afraid to stand up to me.

XXX

Captain Sergei Strelka of the Platinum Knights didn't even bother to try and hide his scowl, as he made his way through the throne room. The room itself was practically a long hallway, with multiple large windows on each, allowing the sun to shine into the room. An impossibly huge red carpet was laid out all the way towards the throne, which was made of black stone and had multiple spikes sticking out of it. On the throne, itself sat the current ruler of the Rolance Empire, as was to be expected.

The ruler was a female beauty of pale skin, fiery amber eyes and shining black hair so long, it almost reached the ground. She wore an expensive red and black garment of the finest silk, which had a rose pattern stitched into it and revealed a fair amount of cleavage. The woman also wore a single, black opera glove, which covered most of her left arm.

This woman may appear human, but that was only a ruse. By now everyone in the empire was aware of the true nature of their new ruler, Velvet Crowe, also known as the Lord of Calamity.

Sergei barely managed to suppress a growl. To say that he hated this woman would be the understatement of the year. This woman right there was responsible for the death of half of his men, several Government Officials and who knows how many poor citizens had fallen to her claw before she decided to kill her predecessor and make herself the ruler of the Empire.

Right now she was giving him that smile. The smile that said: "I know you want to kill me, but I also know that you are incapable in doing so." It said something of Sergei's willpower that he hadn't drawn his sword and started attacking the demon disguised as a woman, even though he knew it would be a feeble attempt.

"Captain Sergei." The Lord of Calamity greeted her knight with her usual calm demeanor, though the smile never left her face.

"My Lady." Sergei bowed politely, careful minding the tone of his voice. "You called for me?"

"That I did." Velvet nodded, the smile leaving her face and her expression turning neutral. "I hope it wasn't an inconvenience for you. I know how much attention your tasks as captain require of you."

"It is never an inconvenience, when you call for me, my lady." The captain lied. The Lord of Calamity was quite aware that he actually loathed spending time in the same room with her for even a single second. The obvious signs aside, no normal human would be happy if suddenly a demon came running along, killing the ruling caste and making itself the new ruler.

"What is it you wish of me?" the captain asked, a part of him actually being genuinely curious. The rest just wanted to slit the woman's throat with his sword.

"I have received a rather disturbing report today. You are aware that our harvest has been, to put it bluntly bad the past couple of years. Our food reserves are holding up, but unless we have a better harvest this year, the people will starve."

"I am well aware of that fact." The captain replied. He was also sure that she had something to do with it, as the harvest wasn't the only thing that had been a problem for the past couple of years. "Does this have anything to do with why you summoned me?" he asked.

"Indeed." Velvet nodded, standing up from her throne, her dress no longer hiding the red cushions. "The report said that thieves have been raiding our crop storages as of late. I don't need to tell you what would happen if this continues."

The captain bit the inside of his cheeks, knowing exactly what she was talking about. In fact, just the previous day he had received the same report and took immediate countermeasures, by increasing the guard presence among the storage facilities. However, he had not told the Lord of Calamity about this problem, for a multitude of reasons. The most prominent one was that she would take drastic measurements and punish the entire populace for something only a select few people were responsible for.

"I want you to increase the guards stationed at our storage facilities." The Lord of Calamity ordered. "I also want you to investigate the thefts and find the culprits. I do not wish to the people to believe that the guards are not able to apprehend some simple thieves."

Captain Sergei Strelka had to blink a couple of times. That was it? Just a simple investigation? No searching the houses of the people, no mass arrests, no mass executions, not even a shortening of the rations given to the people? In all honesty, he was surprised. He didn't expect the Lord of Calamity to act so...humane. A second later, Sergei wanted to slap himself. A demon being humane? That was laughable. No, Sergei had simply underestimated the Lord of Calamity. Clearly, she didn't plan on making the populace hate her more than they already did. She wanted a functioning Empire, not a crippled one. That much was obvious.

"Understood." Sergei saluted. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Indeed there is."

Sergei cursed himself. He just had to ask.

Velvet walked a few steps closer to the captain. "Our spies report that the tension is rising in the Kingdom of Hyland. Their leaders are now openly considering to go to war with us in order to make up for the poor harvests they experienced as well."

The captain tensed up at those words. So it came to this after all. Even before the Lord of Calamity took over the Empire, the relationship between Rolance and Hyland had been far from good. Even in Rolance, a war had been considered in order to get food and possibly better farming land from the neighboring Kingdom in order to make up for the losses, though at this point it was talked about behind closed doors.

"Shall I prepare the army?" Sergei asked.

The Lord of Calamity put her ungloved hand under her chin, thinking. "Prepare yes, but do it discreetly. From what our spies have gathered, Princess Alisha is doing her best to keep the idiots who want to go to war in check. In fact, she has gone as far as to hold the first Sacred Blade festival in years."

Sergei's eyes widened. A Sacred Blade Festival basically meant that there was the potential of a new Shepherd finally appearing on the face of the land, someone who would be able to challenge the Lord of Calamity and remove her from not only the throne but from the realm of the living. There was a possibility, a tiny possibility that his homeland would be saved soon. His surprise was immediately replaced with horrifying realization.

The Lord of Calamity was well aware that the Shepherd would be the only person able to eliminate her. Surely she had some sort of plan in order to get rid of the Shepherd immediately, should one appear. Sergei had to do something.

Carefully masking his emotions, Sergei cleared his throat before speaking up. "I see. So, do you think Princess Alisha will be able to keep the government officials in check."

"I am not sure." Velvet shook his head. "Which is why I want you to prepare our forces, just in case. Humans are naturally greedy and mistrusting creatures. If they see her as a threat to their power, they'll probably try to remove her, if you catch my drift."

Sergei nodded, understanding. He knew enough about the politics to not be surprised at the Lord's deduction. He could easily see this happening in the Rolance Empire as well, as much as he loathed to admit it. So far they had been lucky. Their new Empress didn't appear to have any plans to expand her border and instead focused on securing her position as a ruler. From the looks of things, their luck had run out.

"I understand. I will give the necessary instructions immediately."

"Good. You're dismissed."

Sergei gave one final salute, before turning around and heading out of the throne room. Considering everything, this was one of the better conversations he had with the Lord of Calamity, even though it was one of the shorter ones. He had not lost his temper, she had not threatened him in any way or even indicated of that she knew of his secret plans to overthrow her. He was about to exit the room when Velvet called him one last time.

"And Captain? As much as I enjoy a midnight snack, please refrain from sending any more assassins to my chambers. I prefer to have an uninterrupted good night's rest."

XXX

~Captain Sergei Strelka is one of the most competent knights I have ever met in my life. He is not loyal to his rulers, but his kingdom and his people. Never once did I ever sense a single bit of malevolence coming off from him, no matter how much I provoked him. If he had been born a thousand years earlier, I am sure he would have become an exorcist praetor.~


	2. Chapter 2

~There is something every ruler has to worry about, be they a kind, considered ruler or a tyrant like me. And that is the population of course. A kingdom without people to occupy it, isn't much of a kingdom, as it is simply deserted land. Of course, most tyrants generally don't care about the so-called peasant folk, but those are idiots. Even if the very concept of morale is something those rulers have lost, even they should have realized that a hungry nation is an inefficient nation.~

XXX

"Let me get this straight. The church asks for money in order to renovate their church and nearby facilities? What exactly do they mean by facilities?" Velvet asked her advisor, a middle-aged man with a brown beard, who had survived her initial assault upon the palace. The man, his name was Crendor, winced when the Lord of Calamity glared at him. He almost dropped the scroll he held in his hands, sweating bullets and shaking like a leaf in the wind.

"I-I-I am not sure, my lady." the man stuttered, his eyes frantically looking over the notes on his scroll. "I-I-It d-d-doesn't say a-a-anything else. B-b-but if you so de-de-de-desire, I can g-g-g-go to the cardinal and-"

"Forget it."

The man shrieked involuntarily when the Lord of Calamity waved her left hand. The one that was responsible for the death of countless humans. This time the advisor did drop the scroll while shielding his face from an attack that never came. Velvet let out a sigh. Just another day of business.

"I suspect the new cardinal simply wants the money to build himself a bigger house or do who knows what he wants to do with the money."

Slowly Crendor looked up to his lady, relieved when he saw her having the same bored expression on her face, she had been wearing these past two hours. During his time in serving the Lord of Calamity, advisor Crendor had learned that when his lady was bored, it simply meant she wanted to get over with the petitions, in order to continue her dastardly plans she had for the world.

"Last time I checked the church, it was just fine. There's no need for any kind of renovation, big or small. If they need a new kitchen, they can simply use the money they get from the people. From what I have seen, people have the rather peculiar habit of donating money to the church, even though they need it for themselves."

"P-peculiar indeed." Crendor agreed, quickly picking up the scroll. "I-I'll inform the cardinal of your decision."

"Thanks. Is there anything else?" Velvet asked, leaning her head against her not-gloved fist.

"U-um….y-yes. Just a minor thing, I assure you." The advisor said, after checking his scroll for a moment.

"All right." The Lord of Calamity sat upright once again, inwardly relieved that it was almost over. "What is it?"

"It's about the repairs of the roads in the merchant distinct. It...ah...it seems like there has been a problem with the transportation of the necessary materials."

"A problem?" The Lord of Calamity echoed, raising an eyebrow. "What kind of problem are we talking about exactly? It shouldn't be too hard to transport a couple of rocks from the quarry to here."

"Ah, eh, yes, yes. Under normal circumstances, it is as you say." the advisor agreed with a nervous smile.

"Under normal circumstances?" Velvet parroted once again, leaning a little forward. She didn't realize that she had an intimidating effect on her advisor until Crendor hid his face behind the scroll he was holding.

"I-I-It's the weather, my lady! As you know, the recent rains are the cause of multiple landslides, including at our own quarries." Crendor spoke hastily. "A m-m-m-messenger arrived today, my lady. There was another landslide at the nearest quarry."

"Another one?" Velvet asked, sounding slightly alarmed.

"Y-yes," Crendor confirmed. "The lives of t-t-two men were lost, due to the slide. They had been working on removing the earth from the previous slide. Additionally, three carts were damaged and one completely destroyed. We also lost two horses." The bearded advisor listed off.

Velvet frowned, looking to the side. "Those poor souls." She mumbled to herself, the man in front of her unable to hear her. Out loud she said: "So, I guess we can't expect any delivery from our southern quarry for some time. Do we have an estimate?"

"Uh...um…" Once again, the man checked his scroll. "Well, the messenger told me that it would take at least a month to clear the road. That doesn't include any additional landslides that may happen. Additionally, in order to receive the acquired amount of rock in order to repair the damaged roads, they'd need to replace the lost cart and repair the others."

"Great, a month." Velvet sighed. "What about our northern quarry? Can we expect a delivery in the next two weeks?"

"I-I-I'm afraid not," Crendor replied, shivering and sweating. "From our latest report, they'll be busy clearing the road there for weeks to come. Not to mention it is even further away, than the southern one."

The Lord of Calamity suppressed a groan. How come every time she actually tried to do something good, something bad needed to come up almost immediately? It was like Eizen's Reaper's Curse was still hovering above her.

"Do we have any alternatives?"

"W-well…" the advisor wracked his brain for a solution, "the o-o-o-only thing I can think of r-r-right now is to buy the necessary materials from H-H-H-Hyland. B-b-b-but of course, given recent events-"

"They might not be willing to sell us anything. Or at the best case scenario, sell us anything for triple the regular price." Velvet finished for the man in front of her. She suppressed a sigh, trying to think up of a way to solve this little problem. It wasn't all that important to get the roads repaired, but it was something Velvet wanted to have done for months. It was slowly but surely bugging her, having to delay the repairs over and over again. Annoyingly, she couldn't come up with anything herself at the moment.

"All right." she sighed, eventually. "For now, send some men to our quarries to help the workers clear the road. It's all we can do for now. Also, remind the Raven Guild that they better deliver on time."

"I-it will be done, my lady." Crendor bowed deeply. "I-is there anything else you wish of me?"

"No, you're dismissed."

The bearded advisor almost smiled brightly upon hearing those words. After bowing a second time, the advisor turned around and left the throne room at a rather quick pace. As soon as the doors behind him closed, Velvet loosely slumped down in her thrown, sighing deeply.

"What a day." Velvet spoke to herself. "Thieves, churches, guilds, wild animal attacks, the nobility...I should just devour them all and be done with it." She sighed again, mentally noting that she had done this a lot today. Deciding that she was in desperate need of fresh air, the Lord of Calamity, otherwise known as Velvet Crowe, stood up from her throne and made her way towards the palace gardens. She needed to go through a series of long hallways for that, which inevitably led the demon to meet with the castle staff. Maids, servants and even knights, all of them bowed down as soon as she crossed their paths. Not out of respect mind you, but out of fear. And they had all reason to fear someone who was capable of taking over a kingdom all on her own.

The Lord of Calamity ignored them, holding her head high while marching through the halls of her home. Seemingly, the puny humans were not worth her attention, unless they were being served to her by the palace kitchen. She emitted an aura of strength and authority, someone who you better not mess with, less you have a death wish.

After a couple of minutes, Velvet found her way to a huge patch of green inside a gray city. The weather wasn't the best at the moment, clouds were hiding the blue sky and it was a little colder than it usually was around this time of the year. From the looks of things, it wouldn't be long until it rained once again, which would not be devastating unless it lasted for longer than one or two days. The Lord of Calamity couldn't help but scowl upon remembering just who had been responsible for the seemingly never ending rain. It left quite the mess for the Lord to clean up, among all the other problems that required her attention.

Velvet took in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to clear her head. She tried to keep her attention away from matters of the state and rather focus it on the garden, which had seen a considering redecoration ever since the Lord of Calamity took over.

Apple Trees had been carefully rooted out from other location and placed inside the garden. There were so many, the garden could easily be considered a small apple farm. The staff was considerably busy picking up fallen off apples from the grass, in order to keep the look of the garden intact. There were multiple cobblestone paths leading through the garden to multiple flower patches and even some decorative statues. Each path was flanked by rows and rows of princessia flowers, Velvet's favorite. It helped her to keep a cool mind, whenever her underlings became unbearable. Don't get her wrong, most followed her orders without question, but not all. And she couldn't just devour all of the nobles, else she would have to run the Empire all by herself.

"You look troubled." A young, feminine voice brought Velvet out of her thoughts. Looking over to a white bench, Velvet found a young girl, no older than twelve sitting on said bench. She had short, dark hair and wore a lilac, black outfit, which was very revealing for someone of her age. Then again, one could never be too sure about the age of a seraph just from simple appearance alone. Symonne was no exception to that rule.

"Just the usual." Velvet replied non-chantilly, making her over to the dark seraphim. Careful with her dress, the Lord of Calamity placed herself next to the seraphim, who in return looked at her lord with a playful expression.

"Oh really? Did you devour anyone while I was not looking?" the Seraphim asked.

"I didn't feel particularly hungry." The Lord of Calamity waved off with her gloved hand.

"Too bad. There are still so many people left in this city that produce so much malevolence." Symonne looked into the cloudy sky, watching as the dark particles flew upwards as if they were trying to corrupt the very heavens themselves. "So much malevolence. It is a wonder in of itself, that there still exist uncorrupted seraphim like me."

"Maybe." Velvet conceded. "But there are still places where seraphim can live in peace without the fear of corruption. And personally? I think humanity would sooner turn completely into hellions before they corrupt every last seraph in existence. Which doesn't make the situation any better of course." Velvet added.

"Mhm." Symonne nodded absentmindedly. "Did you hear? Our dear Princess Alisha is holding a Sacred Blade Festival."

"I did." Velvet nodded.

Symonne blinked in surprise, upon her calm demeanor. "Aren't you worried about the possibility of a new shepherd taking up the mantle and trying to undo everything you've worked for?"

"What's there to worry about?" Velvet countered. "If there will be a shepherd, he or she will be inexperienced at best. I managed to kill the very first shepherd when he was at the peak of his power. Killing some gifted no-name should be easy if it even comes to this."

"You certainly are confident," Symonne remarked and then shrugged. "Then again, I suppose you're right. That seraph...I forgot her name...she has lost a considerable amount of power over the years, simply because she loses her hosts every couple of years. Plus the new shepherd would be hard pressed to find any willing Seraphim to become sub-lords in order to "save the world". Many seraphim are already well on their way in becoming a dragon."

Velvet looked to the side. Whenever she heard the term "dragon", she needed to think of Eizen. She still had not been able to locate him, which could mean anything in his case. Logic dictated that he had already become a dragon, but there were a couple of other scenarios she could think of. She sincerely hoped he had simply gone to the far continent and was exploring the other side of the world for its history and treasures.

"It's all the more reason why we need to act, while we still have time. Symonne." Velvet looked directly at the seraphim's face. "I want you to go to Hyland and watch the festival. By the off chance a shepherd emerges, don't kill him just yet. His purification powers might give us the time we need to save this world."

She looked down on her dress. "If he is willing to join our cause that is."

"Well, I've been meaning to get out of this castle for a while anyways," Symonne announced, jumping off the bench and stretching her short limbs, exposing her belly button in the process. Velvet swore, if the Seraph wouldn't be invisible to humans, she would scold the girl right here and there, no matter the actual age.

"Will you be okay on your own?" Velvet asked, concern clearly coming from the tone of her voice.

Symonne looked back at her Lord and smiled. "Don't worry. I am not going to turn into a dragon any time soon."

Velvet smiled back. "All right." With her ungloved hand, she punched a nearby tree, causing it to shake. A single apple fell off the tree and landed in her hand. She held the fruit out to Symonne, who eagerly accepted the fruit.

"Good luck."


	3. Chapter 3

~Symonne… it is not to me to reveal what she has been through, even if it would be by simply writing it in this diary. She is a rather unusual Malak, in multiple ways. But she has proven herself loyal to me and my cause. I sometimes wonder what would have happened, had we met a millennium ago. I am sure we would have gotten along just well.~

XXX

The journey from the Rolance Empire to the Kingdom of Hyland was always a long one, especially without a horse. Not that Symonne ever learned how to ride one. It would just look weird to the humans for an unmanned horse to gallop across the road. Plus some human would most likely steal the animal from Symonne, so there was that.

Still, after weeks of dodging hellions and wandering by her lonesome, the female seraph arrived at Ladylake. Well, she wasn't inside the city as of yet, rather she was taking a stroll around the lake. It would have been a nice view, if not for the malevolence coming out of the city itself. In Symonne's opinion, it was actually a small miracle that the entire continent had not become a hellion infested haven as of now. But it was pretty close to that. One just had to look at the state Marlind was in. If Medicine didn't arrive in time, the entire town would turn into monsters soon enough. And with the bridge at the Falkewin Hillside destroyed, it won't take long for that to come true.

Luckily, Symonne had her ways of traveling, meaning she wasn't so reliant on bridges and the such. It certainly paid off being able to use artes of all of the four elements. While those thoughts were going through the young seraph's head, she didn't notice that there was a pack of hellion wolves running towards her direction, until they were jumping right at her. She only had a couple of seconds to react, but that was more than enough for someone of her caliber.

("Really?") she thought to herself, before drawing her baton, swinging it around and unleashing a fire arte onto the incoming attackers. With multiple yelps, the wolves were thrown backward and landed on the ground with their fur on fire. As soon as they managed to get up again, they panicked and ran helping into the lake. Symonne for her part ignored them and just continued on her trip to the city. She could already see people in the distance as they made their way into the city.

It was a slow ongoing process, which was no surprise given just the amount of humans coming because of the festival. Symonne would have to be careful not to get overrun by a cart or squished between two humans. It came with the job territory.

Crossing one final bridge, the young seraph was ready to enter the with malevolence corrupted town, but stopped in her tracks, when she saw that the way inside was blocked. It looked like a cart had lost its tire and as a result, an entire caravan had stopped and was blocking the bridge connected to the city. Normally the seraph would climb around, but there were also a lot of people in the way. This, in turn, made using her artes undesirable, as it would get her some unwanted attention.

Symonne sighed when she realized she would need to wait until the humans had resolved their little problem. Turning around, the young Seraph looked for a nice spot to sit and wait, when she noticed two particular people approaching the city. One was obviously a human, wearing a blue jacket, black pants, light brown boots and a glove on his left hand. He was equipped with a short sword and had some feathers hanging from behind his ears. His hair was brown and his eyes green.

The second person was definitely not human. Symonne could feel it that he was a seraph like herself. He wore a light blue jacket with gold and black ornaments, white pants, light blue shoes and a cape in the same color. His skin was a little pale, but not as pale as Symonne's own skin. his hair was a pale turquoise-white and his eyes were lilac in tone.

What was more was that those two were holding a conversation while walking down the path. A human that could interact with Seraphim and was seemingly friends with one. Symonne's interest was definitely piqued.

Smiling to herself, she approached the two individuals halfway through.

"Why, hello there." she greeted the newcomers, when they were only a couple of feet away, getting their attention. Both Human and Seraph stopped in whatever they had been discussing and looked in front of them. Before any of them could say anything, Symonne continued on.

"It is rare these days to find a person capable of interacting with my kind." she nodded towards the blue-clad seraph.

"Wait, you're Seraph?" The human asked in slight disbelief, but also excitement. His Seraph friend crossed his arms, looking a little surprised.

"Indeed, I am. My name is Symonne." she introduced herself with a small curtsy. "And who might you two gentlemen be?"

"O-oh. This is Mikleo." The human pointed towards his seraph friend. "And my name is Sorey. It's nice to meet you."

"It is a pleasure." Mikleo nodded politely. "Honestly, I didn't expect to run into a fellow Seraph so soon. The two of us just left Elysium and are on our way to the human city."

"Ah, so you're from Elysium." Symonne filed that little tidbit of information away for later while keeping her polite gesture. "Personally, I have never been there, although I heard it is the last malevolence free place on this continent."

This seemed to disturb both Mikleo and Sorey. "The last malevolence free place on the continent?" Sorey echoed. "Are you sure you aren't exaggerating?"

"I take it you do not come out of Elysium very often." Symonne deduced and turned around. She gestured with her baton towards the city. "Do you see the black particles coming out of the buildings?" she asked.

Both Mikleo and Sorey came a little closer and squinted their eyes. It took them a couple of seconds, but they too eventually noticed the malevolence.

"Oh no." Sorey breathed out.

"This isn't good," Mikleo commented.

"Sadly, this has become the norm," Symonne said offhandedly. "You have probably noticed it already, the wild animals that have been turned into hellions."

"Yes. We even got attacked by a couple of them." Mikleo said, looking back at Symonne with a hardened gaze. "Is it truly that bad?"

"Bad? Definitely. The worst it can be? Well, luckily we're still not there and there are those that try to improve the situation. Take Princess Alisha for example-"

"Wait, what?!" Symonne found herself interrupted by the two boys, as they stared at her in disbelief. "Alisha-" Sorey began.

"-is a princess?" Mikleo finished off.

"Huh? You two know her personally?" Symonne tilted her head in curiosity. "I didn't know she could see Seraphim."

"Well, actually, she can't." Mikleo cleared up. "We just happen to stumble upon her by sheer coincidence and helped her out a little. She got lost inside some ruins in Elysium and was possibly attacked by a hellion. Sorey" he pointed towards his human friend "helped her out a little until she was ready to leave. We thought that was that until out of nowhere a fox hellion showed up. He revealed to us that he had the intent to kill her."

"Is that so." Symonne's gaze hardened. "A fox hellion...doesn't ring a bell."

"He's the reason we're on our way to the city," Sorey explained. "We want to warn Alisha about the Hellion, though he will probably appear human to her. He was kinda dressed like a thief or an assassin."

"An assassin?" Symonne echoed. "I can only speculate at this point which guild was hired, but I have a fairly good idea who hired him."

"You do?" Both Human and Seraph asked.

Instead of answering directly, Symonne asked them a question of her own. "Tell me, how much do the two of you know about the situation between the Hyland Kingdom and the Rolance Empire?"

Sorey and Mikleo both gave each other a look before the human answered. "Not much I'm afraid. Alisha told us that there are rumors of the government planning on going to war, because… it doesn't look so good with the crops."

"Yes, that is correct." Symonne nodded. "However, so far Princess Alisha has been able to prevent this kind of thing from happening. She is doing her damnedest to prevent the war and help the people. Take the Sacred Blade Festival for example. It hadn't been held in years, yet the princess hopes to give her people some sort of hope or just a brief period of time to forget all of their problems. Sadly, this gave her a lot of political opponents, some of which would love to see her gone forever."

What?! But that's insane!" Sorey exclaimed in disbelief.

"It's human nature I'm afraid." Symonne shrugged. "No offense," she added, reminding herself that she was talking to an actual human.

"You sure seem to know a lot about the political situation in Hyland." Mikleo pointed out.

"Oh, that's because I have a human friend back in the Rolance Empire." she explained, shocking both Mikleo and Sorey.

"A human besides Sorey that can see us seraphs?"

"Mhm. She has quite the high standing in the government there, so I practically always hear the latest news. Originally, we wanted to go together to the festival, but sadly her duties kept her back at home."

"I see." Mikleo nodded.

"What kind of duties?" Sorey asked in honest curiosity.

"Oh, there has been… a change of leadership a couple of months ago. The old emperor died and since there was no successor to be found, there had been a little bit of confusion, until a... distant blood relative could be found. As you can imagine, a lot of organizing needed to be done. Probably another reason Hyland is considering a war with Rolance."

"They think of using the confusion, while it is still there." Mikleo deduced with a frown.

"Exactly." Symonne agreed. She personally, of course, knew that there was no real confusion anymore. The Will of the Lord of Calamity reigned supreme. You either followed her or you died by her claw. The humans learned this lesson the hard way.

"Anyways, enough of those thoughts. The humans should be done with repairing their wagons and make way for us."

"Oh yeah. We noticed that too." Sorey commented. "What exactly happened?"

"Dunno." Symonne shrugged. "I can't exactly talk to humans, except for you and my friend of course. Why don't you ask them yourself?" The female Seraph turned around and gestured with her baton towards the caravan. It was then that she recognized the group of humans there at the bridge.

("The Sparrowfeathers! But if they are here, it means that HE is not too far off. Where could he be hiding though? It's not like him to just leave them alone like that, especially the girl. I better be careful.")

While Symonne was busy checking out the area one more time, she completely missed Mikleo and Sorey approaching the caravan, holding a conversation with two of the Sparrowfeathers. She only went after her two new acquaintances, after she was sure that the wind Malak was not with them.

"Oh wow, that's some knife you got there!" the red haired Sparrowfeather spoke up. Symonne, who had just arrived, looked over to Sorey and just noticed the knife being strapped on his belt. "Think you could part with it for 1000 gald?"

Now that she got a closer look at it, it was a rather exquisite knife.

"Sorry," Sorey replied while scratching the back of his head. "I can't really sell that."

"Aww, too bad." the merchant girl appeared to be disappointed. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"Alright. Say, will this take any longer?" the boy asked, pointing at the damaged cart.

"Oh, this? Sorry about the hassle. We got attacked by a pack of wolves." the redhead explained.

"Wolves?" Sorey echoed.

"Hellions, no doubt," Mikleo commented.

"Yeah. They were mighty aggressive for some reason and wouldn't go until we beat them up real good. Maybe they got rabies."

"Yeah...maybe."

"Anyways, this shouldn't take too long." the redhead explained. "Five minutes tops."

"Alright, thanks." Sorey nodded.

The Sparrowfeather girl nodded back and then turned around, helping her fellow merchants with the repairs. Sorey for his part turned around too and walked a couple of steps away from the bridge so that he could have a conversation with the two seraphim.

"Incidents like this have been happening a lot lately," Symonne explained. "So far human casualties have been at a minimum since animals turned into hellions are mostly not that strong. However, if humans don't stop producing so much malevolence...well…" Once again, the female seraph gestured with her baton at the city just in front of them.

"Is there nothing that can be done about this? There has to be a way!" Sorey insisted.

"Sure. Either humans change their way of life or a shepherd takes care of the problem."

"A shepherd, huh?" Mikleo gained a thoughtful expression. "Why hasn't one appeared yet? In the legends, a shepherd always appears in a time of need?"

"Who knows?" Symonne shrugged. "Maybe he'll appear today. Did you know that the festival they're holding today was actually used to find the new shepherd?"

"Really?! That's great!" Sorey exclaimed. "Maybe we'll see the new shepherd today!"

"Yes, maybe…"

XXX

In the meantime, many miles away, the Lord of Calamity was watching the going ons of her city, from inside her castle. Despite their city being ruled by a demon, the humans managed to keep some sort of normality, trading and working as if nothing happened. At least that was what it looked like from the outside.

Velvet was well aware of the things that were whispered inside their homes or shouted inside the taverns. She didn't mind. Let her subjects vent their frustration in private. It helped to keep the populace at bay.

The sound of metal hitting the stone floor caught her attention. Turning to the side, she found her no so loyal Captain Sergei approaching her with a stoic expression.

"My lady," he saluted "as you ordered, with have confiscated the possessions of the Raven Guild."

"And? Are you going to tell me that I overreacted over a simple thing, such as them not delivering their wares on time?" the Lord of Calamity asked turning her head back towards the window.

"...No, my lady."

"No?" she asked, still looking out the window.

"No, my lady." the captain repeated. "Rather… I have something to report regarding the guild."

"Oh?" She still continued to look outside the window.

"We...while searching their possessions, we found several weapons from the barracks of the royal guard."

That got Velvet's attention. The Lord of Calamity turned around, giving her captain a stern look. "Go on."

"Initial investigations show that the Raven Guild have been smuggling weapons reserved for the Royal Guard to the Kingdom of Hyland." From the tone of his voice Velvet could deduce that the man was just as happy to hear about this as she was. "We don't know how long this has been going on, but it must have been for quite some time." The captain clenched his fist. "Someone...from the inside must have helped them," he said through gritted teeth.

"The greed for money knows no boundaries. I should have known." Velvet was remembered of the merchant who used to help out the Aifread Pirates. But unlike then, this wasn't helping her cause, rather it was damaging it.

"I trust that you will personally look into this matter and find anyone involved in this little operation?" she asked with a threatening gaze.

"Of course." The captain managed to regain his composure.

"Good. Because if you don't bring me results, I will personally look into this. And you know what happens then." With those words, she left the captain alone and walked away. Heading downstairs, she was once again reminded just how difficult it was to walk in high heels. It was annoying, to say the least, and often the reason for her bad mood.

After ten minutes of walking, she finally arrived at the dining hall, where her food was waiting. However, instead of finding a table decked with all kinds of food and exotic fruit, she found that the table and the chairs had been moved away. In fact, only one chair remained, in front of which stood two soldiers holding down a man. Well, it looked like a man in the eyes of the soldiers. The truth, in fact, was that this man was nothing more than a werewolf hellion, a severely weakened werewolf mind you. Velvet had personally taken care of that after the werewolf had killed two of her men and injured three more.

The werewolf looked over to her, his eyes widening in fear when he saw the Lord of Calamity's arm transform into its demonic form. Even the soldiers flinched in fear.

Finding some new strength from the sudden adrenaline rush, the werewolf broke free from the clutches of the guard and made a run to the nearest door. However, it was in vain. Despite high heels, Velvet quickly ran forward, jumped into the air and landed right in front of the hellion. Before the creature could even think about turning around, Velvet swapped the creature up in her arm and held it pitifully in the air.

"Any lasts words?" she asked.

"Urgh….curse you….!"

"Too late for that. In case you haven't noticed, I am already cursed."

The devouring process took less than a minute.


	4. Chapter 4

~An assassin once told me that as long as there are two people in the world, one is going to want the other one dead. I can certainly agree with that logic. Being an assassin is probably the most lucrative yet at the same time one of the most dangerous occupations in the entire world. I have to know, after all, I was once hired to assassinate the pope. Fool ended up being eaten by another therion.~

XXX

Something Symonne didn't account for was that Sorey needed to fill out some paperwork in order to be let into the city. She should have seen it coming since he did say that he had come from Elysium, the one place where paperwork probably didn't exist. Luckily the human had no problem filling out some sheets of papers and after the guard checked the written forms, the human was allowed to enter Ladylake. The two Seraphim followed him immediately into the busy city. And hoo boy, busy it was.

As soon as the trio had crossed the bridge, they found themselves surrounded by humans, who were swarming the streets. Everyone from farmer to even a few noblemen, albeit "low ones", was present. Most of them even had smiles on their faces, something Symonne wasn't used to at all. The streets themselves were even covered in confetti. A few children were busy picking it up and throwing the colorful papers at each other.

"Holy moly!" Sorey exclaimed, getting the attention of the two seraphim. "So this is what Ladylake is like! I can't believe it!"

"Huh… So this is how humans live." Mikleo studied one of the human housings, in front of which two couples were laughing with each other. "Don't they find it overwhelming? Wow…" he breathed out.

"Not if you're used to this," Symonne explain, walking next to her fellow seraph. "Humans who lived their entire lives in the big city have no problem with this. In exchange, they mostly find it quite alien to live in a small village or a lonely shack."

"Huh, makes sense." Sorey nodded.

"We have to remember that this isn't a sightseeing trip," Mikleo stated. "The real question is, do we try to find Alisha first, or look for the fox-man?"

"So, let's have a look around town for now." the human offered his idea.

"No." Symonne immediately interjected. "As your friend said, we have no time for a sightseeing tour."

"Sorey has a point though. We need to gather information." Mikleo pointed out to which Symonne shook her head.

"No, we don't." She stepped in front of the two and put her fists on her hips. Her baton she held in her right hand, pointing it backward. "I have been in this city before a couple of times. I know exactly where the so-called high society lives and can lead you there."

"Really? That's awesome!" Sorey exclaimed.

"It would save us a lot of time. Who knows how long it would take to gather information in such a large city?" Mikleo asked rhetorically.

"Exactly." Symonne agreed. "Granted, I don't know where exactly the princess lives, but finding that out shouldn't be too hard."

"How so?" the male water Seraph asked.

"Simple, really. Those royals really love their family emblems. They use those as a symbol of their status, their bloodline to be more precise. As such, the families often show them off even on their houses in various ways."

"Symbols?" Sorey asked.

"Hey, wait. Sorey, didn't Alisha's dagger had something similar on it?" Mikleo remembered.

"Oh yeah!" Quickly, Sorey took the dagger from his belt and held it out. Symonne and Mikleo leaned over and inspected the symbol engraved on the hilt.

"Yes, no doubt belonging to a royal." Symonne nodded. "This should simplify things. Follow me."

The dark Seraph turned around and casually went ahead. Sorey put the dagger away, while he and Mikleo followed their new companion. However, both seraphim soon enough found themselves in a game, where they had to dodge the incoming humans, who of course could not see them. Especially Mikleo was having a hard time since he wasn't used to this kind of thing at all. It should come to no one's surprise, when he ended up slamming into an at least two-meter tall man! He appeared to be more muscle than anything else and didn't seem to notice that he had just run someone over.

"Ow...my butt…" the seraph moaned in pain. Sorey barely contained his chuckles.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." At least the human helped his life-longtime friend back on his feet.

"Such is the fate of us seraphim." Symonne sighed while watching the unusual duo. "With humans unable to perceive us, it is quite problematic to live in an urban area such as this. Not to mention the high concentration of malevolence."

"Yeah." the male seraph agreed. He put a hand on his forehead, rubbing a little sweat off of it. "I noticed that this town doesn't appear to have any blessing. And the high concentration of malevolence is making me a little sick."

"You gonna be okay?" Sorey asked concerned.

"For now, at least. But I guess it'd be a bad idea to stay too long, though."

"If you say so." The human turned towards the darker seraph. "Hey Symonne, is it always like this?"

"Hmm...nope. Usually, it's way worse."

"What?!" Sorey and Mikleo exclaimed being taken aback by the statement.

"The people here are in a comparable good mood." The female Seraph explained with a wave of her baton. "It must be because of the festival. When humans are angry, sad or feel generally unhappy they produce more malevolence. With times as bad as they are, it has become hard for Seraphim to live in close proximity to humans. Hence why there is no blessing."

"But that's terrible!" Sorey exclaimed. "Isn't there anything that can be done about it?"

"Sure. If a shepherd would finally appear, he or she could guide the humans and fight back the malevolence. But so far, no shepherd has appeared. Many people nowadays believe him to be nothing more than a myth, like us seraphim."

"How horrifying," Mikleo commented. "I take it the seraphim who once guarded the area, left before he or she would be swallowed by malevolence."

"Exactly." the female seraph confirmed. "One more thing: Don't be surprised if you come across hellions here in the city."

Once again, the Seraph and the human were taken off guard.

"Hellions? Here?" the male Seraph asked.

"Of course," Symonne said like it's no big deal. "What do you expect with this much malevolence in the air? Still, I warn you two now, so that you don not start a fight here inside the city or else Sorey will find himself inside a prison cell rather quickly."

From their expressions alone Symonne could see that they were not too happy with this revelation, but they understood that they needed to be discreet, while inside these walls. With her message delivered, the young Seraph turned around and continued leading the two males through the city. Annoyingly for her, in order to get to the noble district, they had to go through the market district right in front of the church. And thanks to the festival there were, even more, humans than usual around, making it hard for even the experienced Seraphim to dodge them all. More than ones even she got shoved around, two times even against a wall, while Mikleo almost got trampled over by a horse. Luckily he rolled out of the way just in time, but not without letting out a curse, something uncharacteristically for the sophisticated seraph.

"Wow, that was close," Sorey commented, helping his childhood friend back up.

"Too close, if you ask me." the water seraph grumbled, dusting off his clothes.

"Come on." Symonne urged them with her baton. "We're almost there. And it will get a lot better ones we get to the noble housings. Over there." She pointed with her baton towards yet another set of stairs. Truly, the architects who designed Ladylake were stair-lovers.

With two separate nods, Symonne walked ahead and was closely being followed by the two males. It took longer than the female seraph imagined it would be, but finally, once her foot touched the first stone of the staircase, it was almost like she left the city. No one else aside from her and her two companions were climbing the staircase since most were trying to enjoy the festival. In the middle of the stairs, the female Seraphim turned around, just to make sure that the other two had really made it. Confirming that they were still with her, her eyes wandered over the crowd. Sorey and Mikleo mimicked her behavior and let their gazes wander.

"Wow, so many people in one place," Sorey said in awe.

"I know I already asked this, but how can humans live like this? This can't be healthy." Mikleo commented.

"It's more bearable when there is no festival going on," Symonne explained. "Even humans can live in an area this crowded." Her eyes scanned the crowd of people another time and spotted something unusual.

"Look, over there." She pointed with her baton to the edge of the crowd, wherein an isolated area an old man was berating a child. At least that's what it looked like to the people around the two. For the two seraphim and the human, it looked like the old human was berating a goblin.

"What the-?"

"A Hellion?!"

The hellion in question seemingly had enough of the old man berating him. He said something to the man, though the three onlookers were too far away to understand anything and then ran off.

"Symonne" Mikleo spoke in a serious tone "is this what you meant earlier?"

"Yup." the dark seraph confirmed with a nod.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Sorey asked.

"Sure, if you want to go to jail." the female seraph commented off-handedly. "But there's no need to worry. A lot of humans turning into hellions have enough common sense left in them to not go on a murder spree and are caught by the local guard for minor crimes. Some don't kill at all and focus in scamming the money off from people. Hellions are a mixed bag. The only thing they have in common is that they mean trouble."

"That's not very reassuring." was Mikleo's opinion.

"Better than nothing, wouldn't you agree?"

"Ngh…." Mikleo cringed but didn't further comment on the matter.

"And you live like this?" Sorey asked. "Back in Pendrago, I mean."

"Yup." Symonne nodded. "It has just become part of life, fending off a couple of hellions every now and then. This is why you'll find most seraphim living outside the cities. But I explained this already, didn't I?"

Symonne turned around and continued climbing the staircase. "Come on, you two. While we stand here and talk, the hellion assassin might make a move on the princess."

Sorey and Mikleo hesitated for another second, before following the female seraph. There were guards stationed in front of the "entrance" to the richer living areas. And just as Symonne promised, there were way fewer people walking on the streets here. In fact, no matter how much Sorey and Mikleo looked around, they couldn't find anyone, aside from a small guard patrol.

"Huh? Where is everyone?" the human of the trio asked.

"Probably at the festival for ceremonial reasons or at the castle." the young girl pointed towards the largest building in the entire city. "If I'm correct, now should be about the time where the nobles discuss matters of the state with King."

"So despite the festival, the King cannot participate?" the male water Seraph asked.

"Depends mostly on the circumstances surrounding the kingdom. Given the times we live in, it is not preposterous to assume that there are matters going on the leading caste cannot postpone, even for a day."

"Wow, being a ruler must be tough," Sorey mentioned, looking up at the massive structure. "But it's incredible what humans are capable of building. I imagine it must have taken centuries to build the castle, let alone the city itself!"

"Usually human cities start up as small villages or towns and then grow over the centuries if they don't get destroyed during wartimes or because of diseases," Mikleo said with a hand under his chin.

"That's interesting and all, but it won't help us to find the place the princess lives." Symonne brought her two companions back to reality.

"Oh right. Assassin now, archeology later. Sorry." Sorey apologized. "So, where does Alisha live?" he asked, looking around the various buildings. He noted that almost all of them were surrounded by small walls.

"I have no idea. Our best bet is to look around and see if we can find her family symbol somewhere attached to any of the houses."

Mikleo let out a small sigh. "I guess this is our- GAH!" he suddenly let out a scream, when a dog ran across the street, letting out the occasional bark. Sorey and Symonne watched as the animal traversed over a bridge and was out of sight rather quickly.

"Urgh...dogs…"

"Not a fan of dogs?" Symonne asked with a little smile.

"N-no, I-I was just taken off guard, that's all." the male seraph answered all too quickly.

"If you say so…" Symonne looked in the direction the dog ran with a thoughtful expression. "Still, the dog looked like it was chasing something."

"You think?" Sorey asked. "Maybe it was just calling for its owner."

"Wh-whatever. We need to find the princess and warn her, remember?" Mikleo reminded his companions, not wanting to talk about the dog any longer.

"Right." his childhood friend agreed, but not without smiling a little bit himself.

With everything said and done, the trio began walking through the gorgeous streets of the noble quarters. They were obviously better cared for, with no litter covering even a single stone used in the construction of the road. Even though the waters were clearly corrupted with malevolence, it still gave the district a unique appeal.

As the trio wandered through the streets, they spotted a group of nobleman standing on the side of a crossroad and talking to each other. Sorey was about to approach them, but Symonne stopped him by grabbing his wrist.

"Huh?"

"Don't go there."

"Huh, why?" the human asked with a confused expression. "I just want to ask them where Alisha lives."

"And you think they will answer a "commoner" like you?" Symonne made the air quotes with her fingers.

"Huh?"

Symonne let out a sigh, shaking her head. "Listen, Sorey, I can say from experience that humans that have some kind of political power are almost always arrogant. They see themselves above the "common people", thinking they're better than everyone else. The best case scenario is that they will ignore you and silently wonder why they are being talked to by some street rat."

"But I'm not-!"

"That doesn't matter." the seraphim interrupted the human. "Trust me here, they're all the same. They might even think you stole the dagger from the princess if you show it to them."

Sorey looked down at his belt, where the dagger was attached to.

"Sorey, I think we should take her advice," Mikleo stated his opinion. "Given that she has more experience with human society than the two of us combined, we should listen to her advice."

"...All right." Sorey agreed after thinking for a second. "So, we just continue looking around?"

"That's the plan." Mikleo crossed his arms. "Though we better go through it systematically or else we'll be here all day."

"Good idea. How about we start with the house down the road and work our way through the outer ring from there?" Sorey suggested.

"As good of a plan as any other," Symonne said her piece and started walking down the road with the two males following her a moment later. While they were walking, Sorey had a question for his new friend.

"By the way Symonne, what kind of Seraph are you?"

"Hmm?" the dark Seraph glanced over to the human. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Mikleo over here is a water seraph. I just wanted to know which element you inherited. Just out of curiosity."

"Hmm… actually, I have no element."

"What?" It was Mikleo who spoke up in surprise. "Excuse me, did I understand you correctly? You inherit no element?"

"That's what I said."

"Is this common?" Sorey asked.

"Not really," Symonne replied with a shrug. "I'm just a special case, I guess. I can use all four elements for my artes, but in return, I'm not particularly strong with any of them."

"Interesting," Mikleo commented. "It also means that you have no elemental weakness and are overall a really diverse fighter."

Symonne giggled.

"What's so funny?" her fellow Seraph asked.

"Nothing." Symonne waved off. "My friend in Pendrago simply said the same about my elemental affinity."

"Ah, I see."

The sound of a dog barking non-stop suddenly got the attention of the trio. They looked at each other confused and in one case bewildered.

"Is that the dog from earlier?" Sorey asked. "It sounds like it comes from the house down the street. I wonder what has him so riled up."

"Only one way to find out."

"Hey, wait."

But Symonne ignored Mikleo's protests. A small idea was forming in her head and if she was correct, the search of the trio would end rather quickly.

As soon as the two seraphs and one human entered the garden, they found the dog barking against a seemingly empty wall. But now that she was up close, Symonne could distinguish the malevolence of the hellion from the overall malevolence of the city. Before she could give a warning to the boys, blue flames appeared in the corner of the garden.

"Is that-?" Sorey began but didn't come any further as a humanoid figure jumped out of the flames and on top of the garden wall. The figure turned around and the two males of the group immediately recognized him.

"He's here!"

Symonne didn't waste any time. A small water arte caused the top of the wall to become slippery, which then caused the Fox hellion to loose footing and to unceremoniously fall to the ground.

"AHHH! ARGH!"

Symonne let out a small giggle.

"Argh…" The fox turned around from his back and got up. "What the...who of you did this?!"

"Nice work! I'll remember that trick." Mikleo praised, readying his staff, while Sorey drew his sword.

"Your chicken-hunting days are over Fox!" Sorey shouted at the hellion.

"Well, someone is eager to die." the fox growled, readying his claws.

Symonne in the meantime raised her baton, which emitted a violet light. Before anyone could react, a black and violet dome grew out of the dome and soon enough surrounded the entire garden complex.

"What the-?! What witchery is this?!" the fox exclaimed, clearly nervous.

"Was that a seraphic arte?!" Sorey asked.

"I have never seen anything like this!" Mikleo exclaimed.

"Oh calm down, boys. This is just a little parlor trick. Every human that now happens to pass by won't be able to hear or even see us. It's just a small illusionary arte."

"An illusion?!" Sorey and Mikleo exclaimed at the same time.

"I see." The Fox nodded to himself. "Well, at least I won't have to worry about any interruptions when I slit your throats!"

Symonne took in her battle stands. Direct confrontations may not be her usual style, but for now, she wanted to stay on good terms with the two individuals she had met. It would make introducing them to the Lord of Calamity a lot easier.


	5. Chapter 5

~I still don't know how I managed to hold myself back, when Artorios proclaimed himself to be the shepherd. At that time I didn't care too much about the significance it would play in the future. If someone would have told me at the time that one day my child would become the shepherd...well, to be honest, I had all but given up on a family. So I would have just ignored them~

XXX

Lunarre charged at Symonne with his claws at the ready. The seraph quickly began casting a seraphic arte, but everyone could see that it wouldn't finish in time. Luckily for her, Sorei intervened, blocking the incoming claws with his sword. Mikleo followed it up by swinging his staff overhead, hitting the fox's jaw. With a growl the hellion staggered backwards, covering his mouth with his claw.

Symonne in the meantime had finished her arte and summoned a strong gust of wind, which threw Lunarre into the garden wall. The fox hellion screamed in pain and rage, but got back up quickly. Once again, he charged in recklessly and was stopped by Sorei. The two got stuck in a duel, where Lunarre was using his claws like daggers. The hellion attacked swiftly and decisively, giving no room for Sorey to counterattack. Mikleo decided to aid his friend by once again attacking Lunar head on, only this time the hellion was prepared and caught the staff with his hand. He pulled the weapon, still being held by the male seraph and kicked said Seraph away.

"Mikleo!"

"Pay attention!" Lunarre used the distraction to land a solid hit on Sorey's left shoulder, his claws easily making their way through Sorey's clothes and flesh. The human screamed in pain and swung his sword around without much aim. Lunarre expecting his opponent to collapse not to counterattack was forced to jump backwards in order to not get cut.

Symonne reacted quickly and ran up to Sorey, once he stopped swinging his sword in pain. She ripped a hole in the already damaged clothes and took out a small tube filled with gel. As quickly as possible she rubbed the medicine on the wound, causing Sorey to hiss in pain, but mutter out a quick "thank you". Lunarre of course wanted to take advantage of the short pause, but just as he was running up to his opponents, he was stopped by an ice shard hitting his chest.

"Arrgh! Why you…!" He looked to the side, only to find Mikleo standing on his feet and in the middle of casting another arte. Fully intending on stopping the spell from finishing, Lunarre took out three knives from his pocket jacket and threw them towards his opponent. However the hellion miscalculated the time left for the arte to finish. A torrent of water was shot into his direction, knocking all of the knives out of the way. The hellion assassin barely had the time to jump out of the way.

Getting increasingly frustrated, Lunarre set his own palms on fire. Instead of a normal red fire however, blue fire appeared in his hands. He proceeded to wildly swung his arms around, throwing fireballs in every possible direction. He wasn't really aiming, he just wanted to cover as much ground as possible and it worked. Sorey miscalculated the direction of one of the fireballs and got hit in the chest. With a scream the only human present flew backwards, his clothes singed and the flesh underneath showing signs of first degree burn. Mikleo tried to block the magic with his own magic, however the hellion proved to be stronger than he remembered him being and as a result, the male Seraph hit the ground as well. Only Symonne had no trouble at all. She was using her baton like a small baseball bat, slamming the fireballs to the side as they came in. A series of small explosions occurred because of this and the female Seraph could imagine the owners of the house won't be too happy with the damages on the lawn and the walls.

Eventually the barrage of attacks had to stop and the hellion readied it's claws for another attempt at striking at close combat. However, before he could move, he found Symonne standing right in front of him, swinging her baton at him. He managed to easily block the attack and went for the counter, when he suddenly felt pain coming out of his back. With a snarl he turned around and found none other than Symonne standing right in front of him.

"What?! AAAAAHHHH!"

He had been hit again, twice. Both of his arms had been stabbed with the tip Symonne's baton. It was then that the hellion realized that there were two Symonnes standing on each sight, plus the one in front of him.

"ARRGH!"

And the one to his back as he remembered.

"What is this?!" the hellion screamed in distress. A small smirk formed on Symonne's face, as she witnessed her clones doing what looked like hitting a small puppy with their batons and the puppy desperately tried to look for a way out. Sorey and Mikleo in the meantime had recovered from their individual assaults and looked at the scenery with curiosity.

"What the-?! Symonne?!" Sorey exclaimed, his brain having trouble processing as to what his eyes are registering.

"Are those...illusions?" Mikleo asked, supporting himself on his staff.

"Those? Yes, they're." Symonne told her companions, while she was surrounded by magic. "The pain, however? That is very real." With her arte preparations finished, Symonne summoned a strong gust of wind, which not only hit Lunarre, but also her four clones. All five fighters got slammed against the wall. The clones disappeared, leaving not trace of ever being there. The fox hellion however left some blood on the wall, as he received a rather huge head wound. He let out one final groan, before losing consciousness.

"That was...disappointing." Symonne mumbled to herself, having expected a significantly tougher fight from an assassin of the Scattered Bones, especially of one that turned into a hellion.

"Whoa! That was incredible!" Sorey exclaimed, looking over to the female seraph with astonishment written all over his face.

"I concur." Mikleo nodded, casting a healing arte on his friend and then on himself. "Much better. Are you alright, Symonne?"

"I'm fine." the girl waved off and approached the unconscious hellion. Her male companions followed a second later.

"He was stronger than I remember him being." Sorey commented with a frown.

"He was probably weakened by gramps' domain." Mikleo concluded. "Outside of Elysia, it wasn't affecting him anymore. But I have to say, you handled him rather well Symonne. I don't think I know any other Seraphim who can match your strength, aside from our grandfather."

"The world has become a dangerous place." Symonne said offhandedly. "Hellions have been roaming the land for far longer than I can remember. A seraph either adapts to the situation or seeks refuge elsewhere."

She knelt down in front of the bleeding hellion, eyeing him suspiciously. Behind her Mikleo and Sorey gave each other a look. "So, what do we do now? I mean, I know he's a hellion, but we can't just kill him. Not that we're capable of doing so in the first place."

"Hellions aren't indestructible, even if you're just a human." The female seraph spoke up. "However, you're right. We cannot kill him for various reasons. The most prominent of course being that it would look like Sorey just killed another human being."

The two males flinched a little at the implications of her words.

"So what do we do?" Mikleo asked. "We cannot leave him here either. He'll just try to kill Alisha another day."

Symonne thought about this for a moment, until a metaphorical lightbulb appeared over her head.

"I think I have an idea? Do you boys happen to carry some rope with you?"

XXX

"It's a good thing I decided to follow you." Mikleo stated after thirty minutes. The trio, consisting of the two Seraphim and the human, were making their way through the noble district back to the plaza, where the festival was in full swing. "Honestly Sorey, have you even thought of what you would need, when you decided to leave home?"

"Hey, how should I know my clothes would be ripped apart by a hellion on my first day away from home?" the human protested and then let out a sigh. "But I guess it's a good thing that you brought a spare set of clothes for the two of us."

"Along with other necessities." the male Seraph added with a little smugness in his voice. "That rope was expensive, though. Thank you for providing the money, Symonne."

The girl just waved off. "It's not like I get to spend it all that often, so there's no need to pay me back."

"That's very generous of you." Sorey smiled. "Still, you have been a great help. Without you by our side, who knows if we could have beaten the fox guy? We certainly owe you."

"I agree with Sorey. Is there anything we can do for you to return the favor?" the water seraph asked.

"I'll think about it. For now, we should go and meet the princess. No doubt she will be at the ceremony."

"Well that's true." Sorey scratched his face with one finger. "But waiting in line is going to take hours. Is there a faster way we can get to the princess."

The two Seraphim frowned, trying to think of a solution.

"Sneaking in will just make us look suspicious and get arrested." Mikleo mumbled to himself. "But since the princess is out of danger, there's no real need to rush this."

"Not necessarily." Symonne disagreed. "The sooner the princess knows that someone sent an assassin after her, the sooner she can look into as to who is targeting her and in the best case scenario put them on trial. But the more realistic scenario is that they will get away. If they're bold enough to target a princess, then they've probably already covered their tracks."

"What despicable individuals."

"Welcome to the human high society." Symonne spoke with obvious sarcasm. "High society… ah, I think I have an idea. Sorey, you still have the dagger with you, don't you?"

"Er...yes. Right here." Sorey put a hand on the hilt of the dagger.

"Perfect. This will help us get in quickly."

"How so?" the human asked.

"A festival like this requires a lot of resources to be moved around." Symonne explained. "Food and drinks mostly. Merchants who bring this the required resources are usually welcomed at the back entrances, as to not to disturb the ongoing festivities. Of course, a guard or two will usually be in place, which is where the dagger comes in."

"I hope it doesn't have anything to do with assassinating the guards…"

The female seraph giggled at Sorey's comment. "Of course not. Once we're at the back entrance, you will show the guard the dagger and make sure he can see Alisha's Family Seal. Finally you'll tell him that you're there on Alisha's behalf and he will let you through."

The human and male Seraph thought about what the female Seraph suggested they should do.

"Are you sure the guard is going to be convinced by this?" Sorey asked.

"Most soldiers aren't really the brightest, especially those put on guard duty. Believe me, I had enough opportunities to observe their behavior."

"Observe?" Mikleo echoed.

"I tend to wander around Pendrago, when my friend is stuck in a meeting for hours." The Seraphim explained.

"Isn't it hard? Having only one person to talk to?" the human asked. "Or do you have any Seraphim friends?"

"Hmm… occasionally I meet another Seraph, usually when I travel outside of Pendrago. But Seraphim who come to Pendrago usually don't stay for too long, because of the malevolence. They'd rather not risk turning into a hellion or worse, a dragon."

"Yes, I can see the logic." Mikleo stated in a sad tone. "In any event, Symonne's plan seems to be the best way for us to get to Alisha. And in case it doesn't work, we can always wait in line, I guess."

With their decision made, the trio once again made their way through the ever busy marketplace. It went just as well as one would expect for two invisible people to make their way through a huge crowd.

While slowly, but surely Symonne, Mikleo and Sorey made their way to the church, something else played out in the noble district…

XXX

A pair of guards, who were on their usual rounds, found a very peculiar sight indeed. As they neared the estate belonging to Princess Alisha, they could hear the sounds of struggle coming from the front of her house.

Curious and a little alarmed, the pair of guards quickly made their way in front of the huge building and were surprised by what they found. The ground and grass patches were scorched at various places, the walls and the front of the house had been damaged by something heavy hitting them. But what really stood out was the man, being bound by rope, gagged and rolling over the ground, desperately trying to stand up and/or trying to get out of the ropes. He, of course, stopped, as he saw the two guardsmen standing above him. One of them was about to speak up, when the other one noticed something else.

He nudged his fellow guardsmen and pointed at with his spear at a wooden sign, hanging down from the bound man. It was hold steady by rope, painted white and written in black letters was: "I am an assassin. Please lock me up."

XXX

Eventually the trio managed to make their way into a back alley, where they decided to take a quick break.

"Phew, I'm not sure if I ever could get used to that." Sorey stretched himself.

"Tell me about it." His lifelong friend groaned, rubbing his leg. "Never knew wood can be that hard…"

"It's a good thing that this festival is over by tomorrow." Symonne said, dusting off her clothes. "The horses are always the worst."

"Hey, is this the right way?" Sorey asked, looking around.

"I saw some merchants going through here earlier." Symonne told the others. "I doubt they'd just go here, if it leads to a dead end."

"Fancy meeting you here." A fourth voice spoke up. The three companions turned towards the new voice, which turned out belonged to the red headed merchant girl, whose cart had been broken.

"Oh, hey there." Sorey greeted back.

"What are you doing here? I thought you'd be at the festival." the girl stated.

"Ah, that. I'm just taking a little break. I'm not really used to crowds this big."

"Haha, well I can understand that."

"So, what are you doing here?" Sorey asked the girl.

"Oh, just over there is the back entrance to the church. We're doing business stuff over there. Sadly, there's not much business I'm doing right now. I'm looking for a friend."

"A friend?" Sorey echoed.

"Yup. We lost him earlier in the crowd. We thought he'd just follow us, but he's certainly taking his sweet time. You didn't happen to see a really pale guy, with orange-like hair?" the girl asked.

"Not really." the male human replied, crossing his arms. "Then again, it's hard to spot anyone with this many people around.

The girl sighed. "I see. Well, if you happen to run into him, tell him Rose is looking for him. I better keep looking, see ya."

"All right." Sorey nodded and let the girl walk off. "Hey, wait! What's his… name? Wow, she's fast."

"Yeah, looks like she's in a hurry." Mikleo commented. "At least we know that we're on the right way. We should go."

"Yeah." Sorey nodded and the two walked off. Symonne followed them, a small smile spreading on her face.

It turned out the group didn't have to walk for very long, as they soon reached the back entrance, leading to a grassy field. Two guards stood on each side of the entrance and as soon as Sorey came into their field of vision, they blocked the path.

"No entry." The left guard stated in a rough voice. "If you want to check out the festival, go out front!"

"Sorey, show him the dagger." Symonne told the human, to which he almost nodded. Quickly he took the dagger of his belt and showed it to the guard. "I kind of have an appointment with Princess Alisha and I'm already running a little late."

"This crest… It IS Princess Alisha's!"

"Yup. She er… gave it to me for… authorization of entry." Sorey stumbled over his words, to which Mikleo silently facepalmed.

"This is the real McCoy! I-I see. You have an appointment and are running late. Then you better hurry! Oh, but I must ask you to leave your sword with me for security reasons."

"Sure thing. And thanks."

Sorey handed his sword over to the guard, who put the extra weapon on his own belt. Wordlessly the Seraphs and Sorey walked through the entrance and found a staircase leading into the building. After walking through a short corridor, the trio found themselves inside the main room, which was almost as crowded as the plaza.

"Let's see. The sacred sword is stuck inside a pedastal. Grr, I can hardly see anything." Symonne growled. She tried standing on her toes, but the people in the room were just too big. In fact, neither Sorey nor Mikleo could see anything either.

"Yeah shucks." Sorey agreed.

"Remember. We have to find Alisha first and tell her about the attempted assassination." Mikleo told them. "It will be hard to spot her in this crowd though."

"Sorey?"

"I stand corrected."

"Sorey is that you?"

All three of them turned around and indeed, they found the princess standing down some stairs.

"Alisha!" Sorey greeted back and walked down towards the princess.

"Welcome!" The princess greeted him.

"And who may this be?" A woman with red hair, which covered her right eye and wearing a more sophisticated version of the guard armor, asked.

"This is Sorey." Alisha introduced the out of towner.

"Ah yes." The woman nodded, understanding. "The one who rescued our princess way out there in the ruins."

"Sorey, this is Lady Maltran." Alisha introduced the woman. "She's been appointed as the committee leader for the festival this year. She is also the one who taught me the way of the spear."

"Nice to meet you! I'm Sorey." the young man put on his best smile, seeing as she was obviously an important person.

"It is a pleasure." Lady Maltran replied politely.

"By any chance, did you come here to attempt the Trial of the Blade?" The princess asked.

"I wish it was just that. But I'm afraid I have some bad news. Can we talk somewhere more private?"

XXX

Mikleo and Symonne stood at the side of a long hallway, while Princess Alisha, Lady Maltran and Sorey stood right in the middle, the two females facing the male human.

"An assassin, you say?" Alisha asked.

"Yeah. I happened to run into him near the ruins, shortly after you left. He and I fought… though I got lucky." Sorey admitted. "He was more interested in hunting you down, than anything else."

"Gotta give him points for good improvisation." Symonne whispered.

"I distract some, for how he handled the guard earlier." Mikleo whispered back.

"Sadly, it's hardly surprising to hear that." Alisha seemed to suppress a sigh. "There are those who think less favorably of me. For them to send an assassin after me is not surprising. But even so," her eyes hardened "I cannot live my life in fear of them."

"But… but Alisha-"

"She's strong." Symonne whispered in approval. "Those weren't just empty words."

"Thank you so much, Sorey. I really appreciate your concern." The Princess nodded.

"And thanks to your information, we can begin with engaging counter measurements against the individual." Lady Maltran spoke up. "I will give your description of the individual to the guards. That way we may be able to catch the assassin."

"I am glad I could be of help." Sorey responded to the older woman.

"Soon the finale of the festival, the Flames of Purification, will begin. Please enjoy yourselves."

With those words spoken, Alisha and Lady Maltran left the hallway and went back to the festivities.

"So this is what states people deal with." Mikleo said, walking up to his friend.

"She didn't even flinch." Sorey noted.

"She knows we're here."

"Huh?"

The two males turned around and looked over to Symonne, who out of nowhere sprouted a dark expression.

"The Princess, she said "enjoy yourselves". Not "yourself", "yourselves"." The female Seraph explained.

"What?"

"Are you sure it wasn't just a slip of the tongue?" the water Seraph asked. "How would she know that we're here? Why would she even assume that there are any Seraphim around?"

Symonne let out a small breath, seeing the logic in his statement. "I guess you're right. Sorry, the politicians in Pendrago must have made me paranoid of all politicians. That's what I get for helping out my friend with the affairs of the Empire." She shook her head clear and then looked at her companions.

"Anyway, should we go and look for the sword?"

"Oh yeah! I almost forgot about that!" Sorey walked ahead, with the two Seraphs following him. As they returned to the main room, they noticed that the crowd had somewhat dissipated and allowed them to have full view of the middle of the room. And as Symonne told them earlier, there was indeed a beautiful sword stuck inside a pedestal, right in front of an altair. A man was doing his best to take out the sword, but failed miserably.

However, what really got the attention of the trio was the woman in red lying right in front of the sword!

"If no one else can see her, does that mean she's a seraph?" Sorey asked his two companions.

"She's been like this for years." Symonne spoke up, getting the attention of the two young men. "She's barely awake these days, resting most of the time in order to avoid the malevolence from infecting her. I think she never even noticed me the few times I came to visit."

"Did you try talking to her?" Mikleo asked.

"I did." the female seraph confirmed. "But it's of no use. Even when she's awake, she didn't appear to notice me or anything at all. She's also probably the reason there hasn't been a new shepherd around." Symonne half lied. She of course knew that was exactly the reason. "Because there's hardly a human soul left that can see us Seraphim."

"Wow. So the legends were true. But, I'm worried about her." Sorey nodded towards the red seraph. "Is there nothing we can do to help her?"

Before any of his companions could give him an answer, Alisha and Lady Maltran stepped in front of the sword, with the Lady speaking to the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow citizens of Ladylake. For the past several years, we have abstained from our festival in light of the general state of the world. But this year, thanks to the grace and assistance of our Lady Alisha, the Sacred Blade Festival can be held once more."

It apparently was Alisha's turn to speak up afterwards.

"We yet live in a time of crisis. Violent weather, Geopolitical tensions, Pestilence, Famine. The list goes on."

A small pause.

"However, I believe that it is precisely times such as these that make our cultural traditions and celebrations all the more vital to maintain!"

There was a small applause from the crowd.

"O wondrous Lady of the Lake!" Lady Maltran turned around, as she spoke those words in the way someone would speak an incantation. She raised her arms to the altar and went on. "Show us your power!"

A flame was lit up by Alisha and much to the surprise of the three companions, the Seraphim in the red clothing woke up and turned her attention to the ongoing ceremony. Alisha in the meantime had retrieved of what appeared to be a small bag, filled with something. She went back to the now fully burning altar, held the bag up and spoke:

"O merciful Lady of the Lake, hear our plea, cleanse us of our sins and woes with your flames of purification!"

The Princess threw the bag into the fire and turned towards the audience.

"Citizens of Ladylake!" she gestured with her right arm at the audience. "This jubilant festival shall be as a prayer to the heavens that we may know peace and prosperity!"

"Some prayer, all right!" an angry citizens spoke up from the middle of the crowd.

"Oh, oh." Symonne whispered.

"This "prayer" of yours gonna give us our jobs back?!" the same man went on.

"The council already seized the crops and weaponry trades for the state!" Another man spoke up. Already Symonne, Mikleo and Sorey could feel the power of the malevolence rising.

"This is not good." the female seraph whispered.

"Why are they doing this?" Sorey wondered aghast.

"They might as well declare war and get it over with!"

"Hey lady, you trying to kill us?!"

"This ain't nothing but the council giving itself a pat on the back! Well, we're not gonna stand for it!" The man waved his fist. "Find someone else to lick your boots!"

"Silence!" A guard shouted and went towards the man with his spear ready to strike. "Do not disturb the festival!"

"If this keeps up…" Mikleo worried, but couldn't finish the sentence.

"Enough!" Alisha shouted from above, causing the guard to back away.

"Hah, serves you right!" the angry citizen taunted. Apparently that was enough to make the guard so angry to swing his weapon. He didn't hit anyone, but the citizens who had been in reach began to leave the building rather quickly.

"This whole riot was a setup!" Mikleo realized.

"Alisha has more enemies than I realized." Symonne commented.

"Look at the guard!" Sorey exclaimed, he himself realizing that the guard was a part of this, not only the citizens.

"This must be the work of the Chancellor." Lady Matra scoffed.

"I can't believe they'd involve the citizens they swore to protect in a power struggle." Alisha appeared to be close to a breakdown. "Are we really so corrupt?!"

Sorey had decided that enough was enough and threw himself between the princess and the ever more agitated citizens.

"Alisha!"

"Sorey, get to safety!"

"No!" The red clad Seraphim stood up.

"Look who's awake." Symonne commented, a little surprised at seeing her fellow Seraphim being so active.

"You mustn't give in to hostility! Such emotions will breed hellions!"

"Too late!" Symonne exclaimed, pointing at a man, who was emitting a dark aura. Sorey, Mikleo and the Lady of the Lake watched in horror as the man collapsed and in a burst of dark magic turned into a werewolf.

"He turned into a hellion?!"

"The evil in people's hearts gives rise to malevolence." Mikleo quoted his gramps. "And once it reaches a certain point…"

"Lady of the Lake!" Sorey exclaimed. "You have the power of purification. Can't you do something?!"

"Another Seraph? And you can see me?"

"Watch out!" Symonne exclaimed just in time for Sorey and Mikleo to notice the hellion charge at them. They dodged just in time to avoid the attack, but unfortunately the hellion accidentally jumped into the sacred flame. A small explosion occurred, putting multiple banners on fire, some of them being purple! In fact, the sacred flame itself had turned purple, being even visible to the normal human eye, which was shown by the masses beginning to panic.

"That's not good!"

"Mikleo, put those flames out!"

"The black flames are part of the hellion itself! The most I can do is manage the regular ones!" The water Seraph explained hastily.

"Okay! Symonne! Can you help out?"

"I'm already on it!" the girl Seraph shouted back. "We need to evacuate the building! Quick!"

"Oh no…!" Sorey breathed out, as he saw even more citizens turning into hellions.

"Figures." Symonne muttered. "Sorey, you're unarmed! Don't engage! Hey, Lady! Can't you do something?"

But the Lady of the Lake could only shake her head. "The power of purification is not my own. It is a power given to those who would draw the Sacred Blade and become my sword."

"Then I'll do it!" Sorey proclaimed without hesitation and ran up to the blade.

"Sorey?!"

"What?"

"This day is becoming more and more interesting."

"Do not be hasty!" The red clade Seraphim shouted, before Sorey could draw the sword. "To become my sword is to serve as a vessel for me to dwell in and to assume she Shepherd's burden. Blessed with the power of purification and abilities beyond human ken. Cursed to be scorned by others and wrought with despair."

"Scorn? Despair?" Symonne echoed as she managed to put out another flame. Those weren't words she would associate with being a Shepherd. At the time she couldn't comprehend what her fellow Seraph was saying.

"To protect this land from the hellions means a constant stream if agonizing decisions. It is a lonely battle, the likes of which you can scarcely imagine!"

"That's the burden of the Shepherd?" Mikleo asked, struggling with his magic. "And you want Sorey to take all that on right here and now?"

"No Mikleo!" Symonne shouted. "She is warning him to think it through! Apparently being the Shepherd means enduring a lot of emotional pain for some reason! So Sorey? Are you really up for this task?"

But Sorey's mind was already made up.

"May I ask you your name?" He asked the yet to be named Seraph gently.

"Oh, of course. I am Lailah." the red clad Seraph introduced herself politely.

"Lailah… My dream is to investigate ancient ruins all over the world! I believe that the legends of the past hold knowledge about how humans and Seraphim might one day live in harmony together! I must find a way to make that happen! To bring humans and Seraphim together again, as it was in the days of yore! If purifying the hellions will save both humans and Seraphim...then… Then it's the best chance I'll ever have to make that dream a reality!"

~So Velvet was right. In the end, we're all selfish people in some way. We just don't realize it all the time.~

"Are you really okay with this?" Mikleo asked with worry.

"Sorey…" Lailah was awed by the speech the human had given.

"That is why I shall become the Shepherd!" he shouted. "I offer myself to you as your vessel and shall bear your burden!"

"I've waited long for this moment." Lailah smiled in earnest. "For one who is pure of heart and free of corruption. A shining vessel to whom my words will reach." She went to Sorey and took his hand. With great interest Symonne watched as a tiny flame appeared to come out of Sorey's hand. The human was caught off guard by the pain, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. Immediately afterwards, he was surrounded by a magical circle around his body. Symonne immediately realized that this was the way a Seraph formed a pact with a human.

"Now, Sorey! Take up the sword!" Lailah shouted.

"You got it!" Sorey replied with a grin.

Grabbing the hilt of the sword with both hands. He waited for a second, before taking out the weapon effortlessly. Symonne needed to shield her eyes by the light the newly found Shepherd emitted. Along it came waves of energy, flowing like a storm for a couple of seconds. Once the winds died down, the people who had not managed to leave the building looked up and saw Sorey with the sacred sword in his hands. He made a waving gesture and Lailah caught it on as a command to put out the corrupted flames, burning the various banners. She complied immediately, throwing sacred papers towards the black flames, which were engulfed in silver flames and extinguished. Sorey then turned around towards the still corrupted sacred flame.

"Sorey… Is that really you?" the princess asked hesitantly.

"Get back Alisha." the Shepherd commanded.

"Sorey!" Symonne exclaimed. "The hellions are still on the loose! Mikleo and I will take care of the flames, but if you want to save the people, I advise you to do it now, when they're still alive!"

"You're right!" Sorey turned around again, just to see another werewolf and a couple of slimes attacking. He and Lailah immediately threw themselves into battle with Sorey engaging the werewolf with his new sword. Lailah in the meantime focused her efforts on the slimes, using quick, but relatively weak fire artes to keep the slimy opponents away from herself and the Shepherd.

While her attacks may have been weak, the slimes weren't too much trouble either. One by one the slimes began to evaporate, until there was only the werewolf left. Mikleo and Symonne, having both finished their tasks watched with great interest, as Sorey unleashed a torrent of strikes, not giving his opponent. In a matter of seconds the fight was over. With a war cry, Sorey slashed the werewolf from top to bottom, engulfing him in a silver flame. When the flames disappeared, they revealed a normal human, who would have collapsed to the ground, if Sorey didn't catch him in time.


	6. Chapter 6

~Demons and humans are not so different in many aspects. For example, both races often come up with silly excuses in order to avoid facing reality.~

XXX

Velvet woke up with the first rays of sunshine entering her room. She let out an undignified groan, as she slowly pulled the sheets off her body, revealing her to wear nothing more than a simple, red nightgown. Heat, cold none of those things affected her anymore, as she was a demon, but her bed was just so comfortable, it was a mental struggle to get up every single morning.

Slipping off her bed, the woman walked towards the window, which gave her a good view of the city she now ruled over. And as usual, the sight was a dark to behold. Most people were still asleep in their houses, but already could she see the malevolence rising into the air, like flies hovering over the body of a dead animal. Even the slowly rising sun couldn't give the scenery any beauty.

Like any other day, right on time, a knock sounded at the door.

"Enter," Velvet called, without turning her attention away from the window. She could hear the door slowly opening, the handle being rattled by, no doubt, a scared maid. After a moment or two, the Lord of Calamity heard uneasy footsteps entering her chamber and the door is closed again by the person who entered.

"G-good morning, my Lady." Velvet recognized the voice of her head maid and turned around. She wore the standard maid outfit, her brown hair tied in a bun and her blue eyes staring directly at the Lord of Calamity. Unlike most people in these parts, she had a brown skin tone, showing her ancestry to the southern parts of the world.

Velvet silently walked over to a chair, which was placed next to her study desk. Documents from the previous day laid there arranged and neatly stacked in a certain order. The candled was halfway burned through and the ink inside the bottle was almost empty.

"You know what to do." Velvet told her head maid, who bowed in return.

"O-of course." The maid walked over to a dresser and retrieved a comb, which had been placed there. Afterward, she walked behind the Lord of Calamity, took a good part of her uncombed hair and slowly began her work. Velvet closed her eyes, enjoying the soft touch of her maid's hand, as well as her handling of the comb. The therion put one leg over another and leaned a little backward in her chair. The combing of her hair always took the better part of the morning, as she refused to shorten it. In her early years, she used to tie her hair together, so it wouldn't get in her way in battle. She had long gotten used to it by now and even managed to take advantage from time to time with her hair. The first time had been purely accidental, as she spun around and hit a demi-human demon in the face with her hair. It distracted him long enough for her to deal the finishing blow.

"You have such beautiful hair, my Lady." the maid said, as she did her work.

"You say that every morning." Velvet pointed out, causing the human woman to stiffen. "And every morning I tell you, there's no need for unnecessary compliments. I won't eat you or anyone else working in this castle, else I would have no one left working for me."

The maid continued her work, her entire body shaking a little. Velvet stifled a sigh and just let her maid do the work. None of the women said a word for the rest of the morning and half an hour later, it was time for breakfast.

But before Velvet could get to the dining hall, she needed to get dressed. This too was part of her head maid's responsibilities, helping the Lord of Calamity getting dressed. The exception was of course Velvet's arm. She never took off her glove, less she risked accidentally devouring someone. Once that was done, which took a good amount of time in of itself, Velvet made her way to the dining area of her castle.

Servants she met walked out of her way and bowed their heads to her, while guards saluted to their supreme ruler, hiding their fear behind their helmets. Once she was inside the Dining Hall, Velvet placed herself on a long table, which was obviously designed for a whole family, plus friends. However, for these past months only she had been sitting here in her loneliness, with only the servants keeping her company by bringing her whatever the kitchen staff had prepared for her. They probably tried to poison her a couple of times too, she didn't know, she couldn't taste it. Her demon body was so strong that most poisons at most lasted for a minute before her system managed to neutralize them. In battle, it gave her opponents a slight advantage, but outside it was just a minor inconvenience. Her body recovered from wounds quickly.

Having finished her tasteless breakfast, Velvet went into the hallway, fully intending on heading towards her study and getting some paperwork done. However, just outside of the dining hall, her advisor was already waiting for her, albeit he looked like he wanted to be somewhere very, very far away.

"G-g-g-good morning, my Lady." the man greeted with the fakest smile Velvet had ever seen.

"What is it?" she asked patiently.

"C-c-c-captain Sergei s-s-s-sent a report, my Lady." The advisor took in a deep breath, trying to get his stuttering under control.

"Last night, h-h-his men captured the food thieves red-handed."

"That was fast." Velvet commented with a surprised voice. "They must have been desperate if they tried to steal from our storages two nights in a row. I assume they've been interrogated?"

"Yes, my lady." Her advisor took out a scroll from a small bag he was carrying and handed it over to the Empress. "Captain Sergei was swift with his report. Apparently, most of the thieves have admitted to their crimes, with few exceptions to say a word. The Captain didn't feel it was necessary to further interrogate the prisoners and a trial date is being prepared as we speak."

"Is that so?" the Lord of Calamity asked with a raised eyebrow. "I trust the Captain's judgment in this case. I hardly have the time to deal with a bunch of thieves." Velvet went over the contents of the scroll briefly and decided it wasn't worth her attention just yet. She'd read it another time, as for now, she had an Empire to run.

"Well then, let's get to work. Do I have any appointments scheduled for the day?"

XXX

When lunchtime came around, Velvet's hand felt a little cramped from signing so many documents. Once again she wondered if it had been the right decision to take over the Rolance Empire, as dealing with this kind of thing on a day to day basis was slowly but surely getting on her nerves.

As had became the usual, she spent lunchtime outside in her garden. A small table, along with a chair and a cushion on it had been set up on the patio specifically for her to enjoy the weather while eating her lunch. It reminded her of the old days when she and her companions had to camp outside and cooked up whatever their inventory allowed them to cook. The results had been… interesting at times.

While usually her lunchtime went undisturbed, today proved to be quite different from the norm. A butler servant walked up to the place she was eating, holding a white pigeon secure in both of his hands. As soon as he had reached Velvet, he knelt down on the stone floor and held the small bird up to her.

"Please forgive my intrusion, my Lady, but this carrier pigeon arrived here from Ladylake. It has Princess Alisha's seal on the message."

Velvet found herself having a hard time not to drop her fork onto the ground, as her brain registered the words her servant had spoken.

"A message from the princess herself?" Velvet almost exclaimed, but managed to keep her voice to a reasonable level. Nevertheless, the surprise was fairly obvious for everyone in earshot. "Why would the princess send me a message? This has to be important. Give it to me."

Velvet almost snatched the bird away from the man's hands but managed to control herself and grabbed the small animal with care. Obediently it allowed her to unravel the small scroll, which had been bound to its right leg and handed the white bird back to the butler. "You're dismissed."

The Butler bowed his head one more time and then left the vicinity as fast as he could. The Lord of Calamity in the meantime broke the seal and unrolled the small paper.

"That handwriting! It's Symonne's! How did she get the help of the Princess?" Velvet wondered before she began reading.

~Dear Velvet,

a new Shepherd has been found in Ladylake. His name is Sorey. He is recovering from forming a bond with the Seraphim. I managed to become acquaintances with him. I will come back after he is recovered, which will take three days.

Symonne~

The letter ended there. It appeared that Symonne had been running out of space, as the letters had been getting smaller and smaller.

"Sorey…" Velvet whispered the name. "Could it be…?"

The shock was evident in her eyes, as she stared at the letter and read those few lines over and over again. Her heart began beating faster, her breathing became unsteady and sped up as well and for a moment it looked like she would panic. But then...

"No." The Lord of Calamity shook her head and chuckled. "Don't be silly Velvet. It's probably just a coincidence, nothing more." She chuckled to herself, thinking of how silly it would be if her son would become the Shepherd. The child of a hellion becoming humanity's greatest hope. It sounded like a bad joke if one said it out loud.

"You, guard!" Velvet stood up from her chair and turned towards the man, who ran up to her as quickly as his heavy armor allowed him.

"Y-yes, my lady?"

"Tell Captain Sergei, I expect him in the throne room immediately!"

"Of course! I'm on my way!" The guard saluted and hurried through the castle halls.

Velvet in the meantime headed in the opposite direction, while her brain began to work.

~A new Shepherd, huh? He could become a deadly adversary if I leave him unchecked. Symonne said that they had become acquainted with each other, which is a good start. However, no doubt I will have a hard time bringing him to help me. Worst case scenario I will have to kill him.

Symonne was oddly specific about the part, where he would recover in three days. Where have I heard something similar before? Doesn't matter in the end. Forming a bond with a powerful Seraph must take its toll on anyone.

Aside from a name, I know nothing about this… Sorey. This is going to be weird. I think I'll just call him Shepherd. I hope Symonne sends another letter before she comes back. The sooner I get more information about the Shepherd, the better.~

Velvet got to her throne room in a matter of minutes and walked towards the overly expensive, yet very comfortable chair. She adjusted her dress a little bit, turned around and sat down. Next, she placed both of her arms on the armchairs and took in a couple of deep breaths, before finally donning what she called the "superiority mask". Basically, she did nothing more than smirking arrogantly, while her voice had that slightly amused tone in it, giving the impression that she found herself not only above the person in front of her but also thoroughly enjoyed them trembling in fear in front of her. She didn't like doing it, but it had become a necessary evil, one she needed to practice in the mirror each and every day.

So she just sat there with her evil smile for a good of twenty minutes, until finally, a servant announced the arrival of the good Captain.

"Send him in."

The servant bowed and opened the doors for the soldier. He stepped in with his typical stoic face, which he specifically invented for Velvet. With a confidence that none of his other men ever showed, he walked straight up to the Lord of Calamity, never once showing any sign of fear. When he was only a couple of steps away, he gave Velvet a curt salute and spoke.

"You wanted to see me, my Lady?"

"That I did." Velvet replied, eyeing the Captain with a certain glint in her eyes.

"I was told that it was urgent. Did something particular happened?" The Captain asked.

"Oh, something did happen, indeed Captain. I received a letter from a racing pigeon earlier. It had Princess Alisha's seal on it."

At those words, the Captain's eyes widened considerably.

"The Princess of Ladylake wrote you a letter? I'm sorry if I'm out of line, but I have a hard time believing that, considering you have yet to personally interact with our neighboring nations."

"You're correct in that regard." Velvet conceded. "The Princess doesn't know me personally or even knows my name for that matter. However, a friend of mine managed to associate with the Princess during the festival."

"A friend?" Sergei repeated.

"You don't know her." Velvet replied to the unspoken question. "And quite frankly, you don't need to know. What you should know is the contents of the letter, specifically where my friend told me that a new Shepherd has appeared in Ladylake."

This time the Captain completely lost his composure. "A new Shepherd?!" The Captain asked both excitements and hope to be present in his voice.

"Hehe, you seem excitement, Captain." The Lord of Calamity pointed out. "You must really wish me gone if even you lose yourself like a child on its birthday."

The Captain couldn't help but blush, giving Velvet a good laugh. The soldier cleared his throat, finding his composure once again.

"But in all seriousness, aside from the name, I don't know anything about the Shepherd, aside from his name. He is called Sorey."

"Sorey…" Captain Sergei echoed thoughtfully.

"Yes. My friend will be back in a couple of weeks and then she'll be able to tell us more about the Shepherd. But, in case something comes in her way, there's something I want you to do."

The Captain stiffened a little, not obviously, but still, he did tense up. He knew what was coming now or at least he had a pretty good idea about what she would order him to do.

XXX

It was in the late afternoon when Velvet decided to call it quits for the day with the seemingly endless trail of paperwork. When you ran an Empire there was always something going on and the worst part was, there weren't enough states people left Velvet could give a part of the workload. Granted that was all her fault, but half them had turned into hellions anyway. The other half had been just idiots, not knowing that they were destroying the empire from within.

The problem with leaving the paperwork behind her was that Velvet often had no idea how she should spend the rest of the day. There was no one she could talk to with Symonne away. And sparring? Even if she did find a partner, she'd most likely accidentally kill him or her on accident with the first strike.

As such, the Lord of Calamity found herself wandering around aimlessly inside her castle for quite a while, until she eventually found herself in the library of all places. Like most rooms of her castle, it was a magnificent sight to behold. Bookshelves reaching as high as the ceiling filled out the place, study desks were placed in a specific order and at a specific distance to each other and the books...well…

Truth to be told, unless it was a cookbook, Velvet usually didn't read it. That didn't mean she didn't enjoy the occasional read, like an adventure novel or even a romance story, but usually, she stayed away from books, having more important things to do. However, unless she wanted to go back to her paperwork, she, in fact, did not have anything better to do at this very specific moment.

Having made up her mind, Velvet crossed the room, her eyes scanning the various titles of the books. They covered each and every topic a human or Hellion could possibly think of, from Politics to History to even Magic, everything was covered.

Being a little curious about the magic books, Velvet randomly took one out and selected a page from somewhere in the middle. However what she found was disappointing, to say the least. The section that she had opened, described the stereotypical witches (old, wrinkled faces, wart on their noses), as they flew on their brooms on a new moon around a hill. On top of that hill was supposedly a big cooking pot, which was filled with frogs, spiders and even parts of children. The witches chanted some kind of incantation in order to ruin the crops in the region or something.

At this point, Velvet had slammed the book shut and put it back into its place, letting out a disappointed sigh. "Is this what they think of magic nowadays? If that is so, I better avoid the other books. I guess without Seraphim to guide them, humans have completely forgotten what artes are."

Velvet briefly wondered what Magilou would have thought about the book, but banished the thought quickly from her mind. Thinking about the witch only reminded the Lord of Calamity about her grave. Honestly, it had been pure coincidence that Velvet found Magilou's final resting place. Well, at least Velvet assumed it was Magilou's final resting place, as she didn't dare to open the coffin and check the remains for any indication of the identity. The Seraph who lived there certainly had not been helpful with not even knowing the name of the deceased woman, just that she had been a woman.

Deciding that those were enough depressing thoughts for one day, the Lord of Calamity went to the opposite section of the library and immediately wished she had not. Apparently, someone from the previous royal family enjoyed… a very specific kind of rhetoric. One centered mostly around woman… and… a certain… "lack" of clothing.

With a furious blush, Velvet left this section behind as well, making a mental note to burn all of those damned books. She was ready to give up in her search but realized that this would mean pure boredom for her for the rest of the evening. Taking a deep breath, the hellion went between two shelves, which had been placed parallel to each other. It was an improvement, but those shelves didn't contain what she was looking for either. One was filled with books about biology subjects, such as animal anatomy, plants and their various usage and the such. The second shelf contained books about the land itself, where specific minerals could be found or where was the best place to grow certain crops. Velvet walked all the way to the end of the shelves and was about to check out the next one when she heard something being dropped to the ground.

"Hmm?" She turned her head around, but couldn't find any books on the ground. Thinking a random book must have fallen out of a shelf somewhere, she was about to go on her search when for a second time she heard something being dropped to the ground. Then a third and a fourth time. By the fifth time, Velvet was becoming really suspicious. Following the noise of presumably books being dropped to the ground, she was led back to the shelf with the… questionable content.

And indeed, a couple of books had been dropped to the ground from one of the shelf's rows. They laid on top of each other in an unordered fashion, some of them opened up during the fall. Velvet was just wondering who would drop books so carelessly to the ground, as the sound of tiny grunts caught her attention.

Alerted, Velvet's eyes darted across the room, looking for the source of the sound when her eyes fell on the bookshelf once again. One of the books was standing out from the rest, literally in fact. The strange thing was, it moved towards Velvet and at the same time emitted those tiny grunts she had been hearing. Curious and a little cautious, Velvet stepped closer to the offending book, keeping a close eye on it. The grunts, as tiny as they were, became heavier and heavier the closer the book came to falling. By the time the female hellion was only an arm's length away from her target, the book fell out, revealing a tiny figure inside the shelf, which or rather WHO was dusting of his tiny hands.

"Bien. That was the last of them. Haha, I really hit the jackpot this time!" The lilac Normin declared proudly, only noticing a moment later that there was a very familiar therion staring at him with fiery orange eyes. The Normin thought for a moment he saw a ghost but realized all too quickly that she indeed was very real and very much had caught him red-handed in the act of stealing a good chunk of erotic novels.

"YOU?!" Velvet and Bienfu exclaimed at exactly the same time, their voices echoing throughout the castle.


	7. Chapter 7

~Bienfu may not look like it, but he is one of the most powerful Normin in the world, only bested by a few select individuals. Combine his power with a naturally gifted exorcist and you have an almost unstoppable force in your hands. I can't help but pity everyone that stands in my way.~

Truth to be told, Velvet had almost completely forgotten about the devilish looking Seraph. Not that she hadn't been aware of the role he played, in fact, Bienfu had played a very important role in their quest against Artorius. He just was so forgettable in the Therion's mind.

Nevertheless, here he was, the same perverted and goofy Seraphim that actually could go through as a demon himself. He was seated on a tiny cushion on Velvet's work desk with a cup of tea placed in front of him. Velvet was sitting opposite to him in her chair, with her own cup of tea sitting in front of her.

None of the two room occupants had touched the former hot, now cold drink in front of them, opting to remain silent in an awkward fashion. Neither demon nor Seraph knew where to start, as none of them had expected to see the other ever again.

Eventually, it was Velvet who broke the silence, by letting out a sigh. "So, it's been quite some time."

Bienfu looked up to the Therion, adjusting his slightly oversized hat a little before answering. "Yeah… it's been… long."

Another awkward silence, which was broken by another sigh, this time coming from Bienfu.

"You know, I have so, SO many questions, but…"

"You just don't know where to start?" Velvet asked, to which the black Normin nodded. "Same here." Velvet admitted. "The two of us haven't really talked as much with each other, as we have with the others, right?"

"Mhm." Bienfu nodded. "No offense Velvet, but you weren't really the best partner to have a conversation with. Well, most of the time. Later you got better."

The demon let out a small chuckle. "Well, I can't deny that. So, how have you been? Have you visited Normin Island lately?" She asked, trying to get the conversation flowing.

In return, Bienfu gave her a strange look but answered nonetheless. "After Miss Magilou passed away…" he bowed his head, looking directly into the fully filled teacup. "I just didn't know what I was supposed to do. Without the Exorcists being around, there weren't even that many humans I could interact with. Rokurou had gone off to see the world and look for strong opponents to fight. Miss Eleanor had passed away long before Miss Magilou. Eizen I have last seen nine hundred and fifty years ago. And Laphicet...well, he's… how do I put it?"

"He has become an Empyrean."

Bienfu's eyes, when he heard Velvet speak those words.

"Wait a minute! How do you know that he has become an Empyrean?! You sealed yourself and Innominat away before that happened! Speaking of, what happened to Immoninat?! If you're here then that means, mmph!"

Velvet decided to shut the little Normin up before he went on a tangent. She managed this by simply putting a finger over his mouth and keeping it there until the little Seraph stopped making any kind of noise.

"You don't need to worry. Innominat won't bother us for the time being."

"Mmmph?"

Velvet took her finger away and gestured for Bienfu to repeat his question.

"Really? Are you sure he won't go on a rampage without anyone controlling him?" The Normin asked concerned, remembering just what kind of power the Empyrean wielded.

"It's a long story." Velvet explained. "I'm not even sure if we have the time to cover half of it today," she spoke, looking out of the window. The sun was almost set by this point and barely anyone was left on the streets of Pendrago.

"Well, it would be nice to know just how you're here and not sealed away in the depths of the world." The dark Normin said.

"Guess it's as good of a start as any point. Before I begin, however, I need to ask you something." Velvet's expression became serious and she looked down on the little Normin. "Have you noticed anything different about the Empyreans? Did anything change recently?"

"Er…" Bienfu tilted his head in confusion. "Not really. I mean they have been very quiet, almost as if they're asleep again. But nothing really unusual. Why do you ask?"

"Good." Velvet let out a sigh of relief. "That means they haven't been affected by it."

"Uh… Velvet? You're starting to scare me. More than usual I mean." Bienfu added with a mutter. "What is "it"?"

"Malevolence." Velvet stated as a matter of fact. "Laphicet… he has been infected with Malevolence."

"SAY WHAAAAT?! Biiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeen! This is bad, bad, bad! This is sooooo, sooooooooo baaaaaaaad!"

Velvet crossed her arms and simply waited for the Normin to calm down. He went on for quite some time, flying across the room and shouting things like "Biiiieeeen!" or "So bad, so bad, so bad!". After ten minutes, the Lord of Calamity stretched out her arm and caught the dark Normin in her hand. She not so ceremoniously dropped him back on his cushion and watched as he caught his breath from all the screaming.

"This… *huff* is… *huff* bad… Velvet."

"You made that abundantly clear." The Lord of Calamity pointed out dryly.

"You don't understand Velvet!" Bienfu jumped up to his feet and pointed at the Lord of Calamity. "Laphicet has become the force that keeps the power of the other four Empyreans in check! His power of the silver flame also prevents the world from being consumed with Malevolence! But now that he has been corrupted, it's only a matter of time until the world is swallowed by Malevolence."

"I am well aware of that." Velvet stated as a matter of fact. "Luckily for you, I have already found a solution. Albeit, I admit it's hopefully only a temporary one."

"H-huh? Y-you, do?"

Velvet nodded, her eyes wandering towards the pile of papers on her desk. "It's something I'm not proud of, not in the least. But" she clenched her hand into a fist "I was left with no choice."

XXX

"It was an honor helping a Seraphim, such as yourself." Princess Alisha bowed to the for her invisible Seraphim, who couldn't help but roll her eyes at the display. Symonne quickly picked up quill and paper and wrote a response to Alisha. The young human watched in awe and wonder as the quill seemingly moved by itself and wrote words down on a piece of paper.

It read: "Please, I should be the one thanking you Princess. You saved me quite a lot of trouble by allowing me to use one of your carrier pigeons."

"I am simply glad I could be of assistance to you," Alisha replied. "If there is anything else I can help you with, you can seek me out at any time."

"I will remember it. Thank you again." Symonne wrote on the same paper. "I will go now and see how our new Shepherd is doing. Do you want to accompany me?"

Alisha shook her head. "As much as I would like, there are a lot of responsibilities I have to carry out first. Lady Maltran has tasked me to help her with some paperwork since she has insisted to interrogate the assassin herself."

"Yes, I heard about that. Be careful, Princess. If there is one assassin in the city, it stands to reason that there could be even more present."

"I am grateful for your concern, but you do not need to worry. The guards are on high alert and if I do say so myself, I am no slouch when it comes to combat either." Alisha replied.

"If you say so. Take care, Princess. I will see you tomorrow." The Seraphim wrote.

"Have a pleasant night, Lady Symonne."

The Seraph couldn't help but laugh out loud at being called a "Lady" of all things. Truly, no one had ever given her that particular title, neither Seraph nor hellion. With an amused smile, Symonne left Alisha's home and wandered into the cold night. The sun had set by now and the only source of light left on the streets of Ladylake were the torches used by patrolling guards.

Speaking of the patrols, ever since they found the wannabe assassin tied up and severely injured, the patrols had been stocked up. The news of the caught assassin spread fast around the entire city and as such the people naturally became nervous. Though at the same time, they laughed pretty loud, due to Symonne's totally not ripped off idea of hanging a sign around the culprit, basically telling everyone his profession.

As for the Sparrowfeathers, they were on edge ever since one of they own was caught. Symonne had observed them over the course of the day and currently, they were mobilizing every contact they had in order to find the one, who beat the living shit out of one of their own. So far they hadn't come around to ask Lunarre, the assassin's name, himself. He was kept in the deepest dungeon Ladylake Castle had to offer, room service inclusive (read: whipping on a daily basis). Though it stood to reason that the hellion wouldn't enjoy the commendations for much longer, as the rest of the Assassin family already planned to bust him out. And knowing them, Symonne didn't doubt that they would succeed.

She was forcefully brought out of her musings, when she felt something sharp cutting her cheek. The girl froze up, her hand rising to where blood was starting to flow out of the wound. In the darkness, she didn't see the weapon flying through the sky, but she could definitely hear the wind carrying it back to the owner. A moment later, a Seraphim dropped from the sky and landed on his knees.

He wore a black hat with golden plates as decoration, a black jacket with a green shirt under it, brown gloves and a cowboy belt, black pants, and boots. His gray-greenish hair covered his eyes and his mouth bared his teeth.

"My, my," Symonne smirked, readying her baton "and here I thought you had completely forgotten about me. Dezel."

"I don't know what your game is." Dezel spatted back. "And frankly, I don't care. It's time for you to pay!" Even before he said the last word, the Seraphim sent out his pendulums, intending to skewer the smaller Seraphim. Symonne quickly summoned a cloud of smoke and vanished behind it. The pendulums hit nothing as a result. Dezel quickly pulled them back.

"Your parlor tricks won't save you!" He shouted and summoned a gust of wind to disperse of the smoke. Once the area was clear there were not one, but three Symonnes standing in front of the wind-Seraph.

"Summon as many clones as you want!" He shouted and pierced the first clone, which disappeared quickly. The second one began charging at him, while the third and presumably real Symonne began channeling an arte.

"I'll get rid of them!" He shouted, skewering the second clone.

The real Symonne had finished her arte and shot multiple icicles at the male Seraph. He in return surrounded himself with a tornado, which caused the icicles to fly out in random direction, hitting the walls of nearby houses.

"One by one!" He shouted and sent his pendulums forward once again. The real Symonne didn't have the time to dodge or raise a barrier of any kind and got hit right in her chest. She disappeared just like the other two Symonnes.

"Another clone?!" Dezel realized too late.

"AAAARGH!" He screamed in pain, as his back was hit by a fire arte. He could feel his burned skin being exposed to the cold air, meaning his jacket had received severe damage. Instead of hitting the ground, he managed to roll off and catch himself. Quickly turning around he came face to face with the real Symonne. For real this time.

Symonne herself didn't look too impressed with the Seraph, idly swinging her baton back and forth. "Five years and still no improvement." She shook her head and put her baton away. Dezel grunted, trying to stand up, but fell back to his knees, the arte having taken a toll on his health.

"Why you little…!" Again he tried to stand up, but it was to no avail.

Symonne let out a tired sigh, as she watched the Seraphim trying to get back to his fighting stands, but failing miserably. The power gap between the two was just too great. Add to that the fact that Symonne had taken an oath in order to increase her own power, well… let's just say if she had not held back with her arte, she would have pretty much broken her oath.

"Just stop it already. If you have already reached your limit, the power gap between the two of us should be obvious."

"Shut it you, little runt!" Dezel shouted and finally managed to get back up, though he any thing but steady on his legs. "You got a lucky hit, nothing more."

"Whatever." Symonne turned around and started to walk away. "I don't have the time for you. AHH!" The female Seraph out of nowhere found herself flying through the air and hitting the ground in a rather uncomfortable matter. Gritting her teeth, the girl quickly rolled on all fours and got back up, just in time to see Dezel throwing a particular tiny bottle away.

"Elixir!" Symonne realized.

"Not easy to get a hold of." The male stated with a vicious grin. He didn't waste any more time, throwing his weapons in Symonne's direction. The smaller Seraph quickly took out her baton once again and swung it just in time to deflect Dezel's incoming attack. Of course, the wind Seraph was far from done. He threw his weapons to his left and right, trying to hit his opponent in between them. Said opponent quickly jumped out of the way and summoned a row of copies of herself. Counting the real Symonne, there were in total ten female Seraphim.

In response to the new threat, Dezel straightened up the chains his pendulums were attached to, by using his wind artes. Now with two oversized swords in both hands he cut through the fake Symonnes, causing them to disappear immediately. Only two Symonnes managed to press themselves on the ground, avoiding the attack. Though their hair got ruffled up a bit by the wind.

Both Symonnes rolled to the left and right respectively, before standing up once again. Dezel already sent out his pendulums once again, making Symonne briefly wonder if he ever was going to do something else, before she started to counterattack. One of the two charged in, while the other prepared another arte.

"Do you take me for a fool?!" Dezel shouted and charged right at the Symonne that was in the middle of casting the arte. "I won't fall for your illusions a second time!" Completely ignoring the Symonne that was charging at him. If he would have paid attention to her he would have noticed the smirk appearing on her face. But as things stood, he recklessly attacked the other Symonne, who disappeared in a cloud of smoke as soon as she was hit.

"What?!"

"Catch!" Symonne shouted and threw another fireball at Dezel. The Seraph attempted to dodge, but it was too late. Thanks to his jump, the fireball didn't engulf him completely, but he still got hit pretty badly. With a loud scream, he crashed onto the ground, his clothes having been lit on fire. Luckily for him, this was Ladylake, meaning he just had to roll a couple of inches to the side, until he was inside a lake, which he swiftly proceeded to do.

Symonne decided that this was as good of an opportunity as any to make her escape from the scene.

"Hopefully nobody heard the explosions," she muttered, running away. Dezel barely managed to keep himself afloat, until he reached the edge of the lake. He could hear the footsteps of his target disappearing in the distance. Of course, this could all just be another trick with the real Symonne waiting for another ambush attack somewhere. So this time he listened closely, trying not to move too much inside the water. However, after five minutes of only hearing the distant water, he screamed in a fit of rage, realizing that his target had disappeared right under his nose! By now she was probably out of the city and going who knows where. If he would have been capable off, Dezel would have leveled the entire city with a tornado.

("Looks like I need to leave earlier than I thought.") Symonne thought to herself, as she returned to the inn, where Sorey, Lailah, and Mikleo were staying in. Sorey was still bedridden for the time being. During this time Lailah, Mikleo and occasionally Symonne had conversed with one another, talking about the world, their homes, and some smaller things, like their favorite food.

The younger female Seraph found Lailah and Mikleo sitting on a table in the corner of the main room, conversing with each other. When they heard Symonne approaching they both looked up and smiled.

"Good evening, Symonne. Did everything go well?" Lailah asked as Symonne placed herself next to the red clad female Seraph.

"Mhm. Princess Alisha was a great help. Though my hand feels a little stiff after writing so much." Symonne sighed. "Now I remember why I usually don't talk to humans."

Mikleo and Lailah chuckled at the comment. "Yeah. People would probably think we're ghosts haunting them. Hey, did something happen to your cheek?"

Symonne reached up with her hand and touched the place of where Dezel had cut her. "Nothing serious. Just a careless human shoving me against a wall. It happens all the time."

Mikleo nodded, understanding. "I myself have lost count of how many times I have gotten shoved against a wall today. It's really not easy living with so many humans around."

"It is a sad fact that humans have long lost their ability to perceive us Seraphim," Lailah said with her head down.

"I wonder what the world would be like if humans could see- are you alright?" Symonne asked as she noticed Lailah sweating a little and hunching over the table a little. Mikleo himself noticed it as well, now that Symonne had pointed it out.

"A little tired," Lailah admit. "It has been some time since I have done as much as taking a simple walk. I guess I should take it easy for the first few days."

"That would be for the best. Maybe you should go to bed early." Mikleo advised.

"Indeed, I should. If you would excuse me, I wish you two a good night."

"Good night." The two other Seraphs replied and watched as the so called Lady of the Lake stood up from her seat and carefully walked around the table and made her way to the guestrooms. However, as she was about to enter the hallway, Lailah stumbled and needed to support herself on a nearby wall. Symonne and Mikleo immediately stood up and walked over to the fire Seraph.

"Maybe we should accompany you, just in case." Symonne offered, to which Lailah smiled gratefully at her two fellow Seraphs.

"Thank you two. I appreciate your help."

"It's no problem," Mikleo replied. "Just tell us when you're feeling worse."

"I will. Do not worry."

With things established, the three invisible Seraphim made their way to the room, where Sorey was staying in. They found the newest Shepherd still sleeping in his bed, his face showing nothing but content. Since no other humans could see the Seraphim, there were no additional beds available. The Seraphim had helped themselves by putting some blankets on the ground and "borrowing" spare pillows.

While Lailah made it herself as comfortable as possible on her bed, Mikleo and Symonne silently decided to check up on Sorey. The only human of the group appeared to be in good health, his initial feather from forming a pact with a Seraph having been disappeared.

"At least he is feeling better." Sorey's lifetime friend commented.

"Unusually so." Was Symonne's opinion. "I have heard of the Shepherd's pact with the Seraphim. The fever is actually supposed to last longer. It looks like his long exposure to Seraphim magic has made him somewhat resistant to the usual side effects of a pact."

She got a little closer to the bed and put her hand on Sorey's forehead, just to confirm that the feather hadn't returned. And indeed it hadn't. However, instead of a high temperature, Symonne noticed something far more interesting, if not slightly disturbing about Sorey's body. Furrowing her brow, Symonne took her hand away and immediately the feeling disappeared. Just for confirmation reasons, she put her hand once again on Sorey's forehead and indeed, there it was.

"Mikleo" Symonne spoke up, not looking towards the Water Seraph.

"What is it? Oh, don't tell his fever has returned?" Mikleo asked in worry, upon seeing Symonne's hand on his friend's forehead. The dark Seraphim, however, shook her head and took her hand away from Sorey.

"No that's not it. I have a question. Did you know that there is an arte embedded in Sorey's body?"

"Say what?!" Both Mikleo and Lailah exclaimed the latter who had listened in to their conversation. Lailah herself had gotten up and swiftly moved over to the bed and put her hand on Sorey's forehead, like Symonne had done earlier. She closed her eyes and focused for a few seconds until she opened them once again.

"Indeed. An arte has been cast on his very body. And it looks like it has been there for a very long time."

"What?! Are you saying that gramps put an arte on Sorey without ever telling him about it?!" Mikleo shouted in disbelief.

"If your grandfather specializes in illusions," Symonne spoke offhandedly.

"Say what? An illusion?" The water Seraph repeated. "Gramp's never used any kind of illusions, outside of hiding Elysium to the common eye. And I'm pretty sure he would have told us if he cast any kind of arte on us."

"I think instead of asking as to who cast an arte on Sorey, we should ask ourselves as to why an illusionary arte of all things had been cast on him." Lailah pointed out.

"And one that is hidden very well," Symonne added her two cents. "I can confidently say I am a master when it comes to illusions, so I should have noticed this the moment I met Sorey. Someone didn't want anyone to know, possibly not even Sorey that this particular arte had been cast on him."

Mikleo needed a couple of seconds to digest the information that was given to him by the way more experienced Seraphim.

"So… someone cast an illusion on him," Mikleo stated, now having calmed down somewhat. He crossed his arms and eyed his friend critically. "At this point, we can only speculate who and have no idea why. Is there any way to break the illusion?"

"There just might be." Symonne stepped forward, taking out her baton. "This arte is strong, but I should be able to disable it, at least for a minute or two."

"Are you two sure we should do it?" Lailah asked in concern. "Maybe his illusion is covering up a scar or deformation he has since birth."

Symonne and Mikleo gave Lailah a look. "That sounds like a possibility…" Mikleo admitted, "But I am sure Sorey would have told me if he had such a thing." He turned towards Symonne. "Go on."

"All right." Symonne channeled her magic, formulating the arte inside her head until she released everything with a swing of her baton and shouted: "Reveal!"

Sorey was surrounded by a dark light, causing Mikleo to involuntary take a step back, as it reminded him too much of the incident, where he saw a human turning into a hellion in front of his eyes. The dark light surrounded Sorey for around half a minute until it disappeared in the blink of an eye. That's when Symonne's arte began to fully work.

In a matter of seconds, Sorey's hair color of all things changed from the usual brown to raven black. For some time the three Seraphs waited for more changes to happen, however before more could potentially be revealed, Sorey's hair color returned to brown.

"That was… anticlimactic." Symonne commented.


	8. Chapter 8

~I heard the forming of a pact between an exorcist and a Malakhim is supposed to be not pleasant for the exorcist. They fall asleep for three entire days. I remember Eleanor only sleeping for one day, but I guess the reason for that was because Laphicet hadn't been the first Malak she made a pact with.~

Eating and drinking were completely optional for a Seraph, however, it did have its perks. With food inside of their stomachs, Seraphim would usually feel better and as a result, fight better for a time being. And since Symonne knew that he was still hiding somewhere in the city, she went through all the trouble to "buy" herself some supplies. Read: since no one could see her, she just took what she wanted and left money for the respective owner. Aside from taking extra precaution, she figured it would be nice to have something to eat and drink on the way home, as it tended to ease up the journey.

Having everything gathered in the backpack she "bought" and after infusing the backpack with her magic so that no one would see it floating through the air, Symonne made her way back to the inn she had been staying with the others. Making her way through the not as of yet busy streets of Ladylake, Symonne reached the inn in a matter of minutes. However, instead of her going inside the inn, she was pleasantly surprised to find Lailah, Mikleo, and Sorey already being outside of the inn, talking to each other.

"Well, look who's awake," Symonne announced her arrival. The group turned towards her, all smiling upon seeing her.

"Good morning, Symonne." Lailah greeted back. "I see you have finished your errands?"

"Yeah. I think a kid noticed a small bag of coins suddenly appearing out of nowhere on the counter of the cheese shop, but else I don't think anyone noticed me."

"A bag of coins appearing out of nowhere?" Sorey questioned.

"Well, it was either that or stealing everything I need for my trip home."

"Trip home?" the human echoed. "Does this mean you'll be going already?"

"Not now," Symonne replied, shaking her head. "But pretty soon. It's a long way from here to home and I'm pretty sure my friend can't wait for me to return. She's probably bored out of her mind with the political nonsense going on every day at court."

"I see." Sorei nodded.

"Anyway, are you feeling alright? You look like you still could use some sleep."

"Ah, no, no, I have yet enough sleep." Sorei waved off.

"Sorei is experiencing the oppressing feeling of malevolence for the first time," Lailah explained.

"Ah." Symonne nodded understanding. That was not a nice feeling. "Well, better get used to it, I suggest. You're going to feel a whole lot more if it in the coming future."

"Thanks for the warning, I guess…"

"Now then Sorei, if you would come this way, please?" the fire Seraphim of the group asked. "There is something I want to show you."

Lailah walked ahead with the new shepherd immediately following her. Symonne and Mikleo silently decided to follow them. As the group made their way through the streets, they passed a gigantic water mill, which was one of the things Ladylake was so famous for. Following the path, the group eventually ended up outside of the aqueduct of Ladylake. Lailah leads the group up some stairs on a wall, from where they had a gorgeous view of the lake surrounding the city.

"Oh man, what a gorgeous Lake!" Sorey exclaimed upon viewing the scenery.

"It truly is," Mikleo agreed "But, amidst this spectacular scenery, the town of Ladylake is being corrupted by Malevolence," the water Seraph spoke solemnly.

"Yeah," his human friend reluctantly agreed. "Now that I can sense it, I can feel the corruption everywhere. We can't let this go on."

"Good luck with that." Symonne placed her arms on the wall and leaned forward. "Sadly, even as the shepherd you can't just snap your fingers and everything will be alright. Ladylake, Pendrago, Lastonbell, Aifread's Hunting Grounds… it doesn't matter where you go, you will find the corrupting influence of malevolence everywhere." She let out a small sigh. "No matter how good it looks, you could probably feel it before, couldn't you? The lack of a Seraphim's blessing."

"Yeah," Sorey concurred. "In Elysia, I could always feel Gramps' blessing. But here… nothing."

"But Lailah, this little walk of yours isn't just to reconfirm the situation in Ladylake with us, is it?" Mikleo asked.

"I'm actually curious myself." Symonne turned her head towards her fellow female Seraph. "There's something you want to tell us, right?"

Lailah looked directly into Symonne's eyes and nodded. The Lady of the Lake turned towards Sorey and Mikleo. "Indeed, I touched upon it before, but now I must clarify it to you." She took in a small breath before she continued:

"The true purpose of the Shepherd. The Shepherds can quell the hellions - beings who bring chaos to humans and seraphim alike - with the power of purification. That is the power of the Shepherd. However, that in and of itself is not the Shepherd's duty. What the Shepherd must quell is the source of all malevolence, the being who gives rise to the hellions: The Lord of Calamity."

Symonne's eyes narrowed a little.

"The Lord of Calamity?" Sorey and Mikleo asked at the same time.

Lailah moved on: "Yes. This figure has been known by this name for countless centuries. Whenever hellions run rampant, this figure is always there. A Lord of Calamity, who begets hellions with the overwhelming amount of malevolence he possesses. Given enough time, a Lord of Calamity can even permanently alter the world itself. Such is the Calamity he brings."

"Wait." Sorey suddenly interrupted. "If I remember correctly, the Celestial Record said that a Shepherd hasn't appeared for the last 200 years."

"And 200 years ago, there are records that the world was overcome by an unprecedented calamity. Could there be a connection?" Mikleo asked.

"I understand." The human in the group nodded. "So, the Lord of Calamity is the source of all the malevolence and it's the duty of the Shepherd to find and put a stop to him."

"That's all well and good, but where is this guy?"

"You mean this girl." At that very moment, Symonne just wanted to go ahead and drown herself in the Lake right in front of her. It had been nothing important, just the incy, wincy, tiny detail of the Lord of Calamity's gender, yet something had possessed her to correct the water-elemental Seraphim. And because of that little slip of the tongue, she had not only brought herself but also Velvet's plans in danger. She was certainly glad that her back was still turned to the rest of the group, as she was busy biting her own lips. But she could practically feel their gazes burning into her back.

"Wait a second! Are you saying that you have met the Lord of Calamity, Symonne?" Sorey asked, his voice showing quite the mixture of emotions, consisting, but not limited to: shock, fear, horror, genuine curiosity and many more things.

"Is that true?" Lailah asked with worry being evident in her voice.

The dark Seraphim knew she needed to think quickly before the situation went completely out of hand.

"I…" she spoke slowly "I… had the questionable honor of meeting her from person to person."

The three people behind her gasped in surprise, but none of those three said anything. Closing her eyes, Symonne took in a deep breath, trying to clear her head, before continuing.

XXX

"It was… a couple of years ago. I was visiting a small village on the border of the neighboring kingdom. There was no real reason for me to be there. I just needed to escape the city a little bit, getting away from all of the accumulation of malevolence. I wasn't doing anything in particular either. Just enjoying the weather and generally being lazy.

The village I visited was fairly small. Only a couple of houses, farms surrounding the land and the only thing of note really being the local monolith. A peaceful village with peaceful people living inside of it, wanting nothing more than to live their simple lives.

One day, while I was just watching the farmers being busy at work, a newcomer arrived at the village and immediately she was the center of the attention of everyone. And how could she not be? She looked like a wreck! Her clothes were torn in every place imaginable, exposing a lot of her skin. Her cape was way too long for her and more holes in it than the average slice of cheese. Her hair was so uncombed and so long, it almost touched the very ground she was walking on. Speaking of walking, her boots appeared to be military boots that belonged to some kind of armor, rather than the average person. A multitude of small dents and scratches could be found in those boots. She also wore a large gauntlet on one of her arms, the only thing on her that appeared to be undamaged. Honestly, if not for her unharmed body, I would have assumed she just escaped a war zone.

Despite her looks, the woman carried herself with dignity and was sure in her steps. She ignored the stares she was receiving from men, women and children alike, albeit they were staring at her for different reasons.

Obviously curious, I decided to follow the woman back into the village, just to see what exactly she wanted to do. I followed her all the way back to the local inn. The keeper, a woman in her early thirties, was staring at the newcomer in disbelief. It looked like she was ready to kick out the potential guest before she even asked for a room. However, the newcomer was quicker. Not with her words, but with her actions.

She put a rather generous amount of coins on the table, which served as a counter and said: "I need a room for the night." Plain and simple. Mind you, it was still morning, so I was a little bit surprised that she would reserve the one room the inn had so early.

The innkeeper didn't comprehend the words at first. She was too busy staring at the coins lying untidily on her table. I could practically feel the greet inside of her growing and for a moment I thought I saw malevolence coming out of her body. The newcomer waited patiently, until the innkeeper finally looked up, realizing she had let her customer waiting.

"Y-yes, yes, of course," she spoke quickly. "I'll prepare your room immediately."

"Good." The newcomer said to the woman. "I'll be back in the evening." And with that, she turned around and left. I barely managed to step out of her way, she was gone that fast. Following her quickly, I saw her walking towards some nearby woods. Naturally, I followed her in there as well."

XXX

Symonne all of the sudden found herself interrupted by a very loud growling, escaping none other than Sorey's stomach. Lailah couldn't help but giggle, while Sorey smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry, I really am interested in all of this, but I'm afraid I can feel a calamity coming up in my stomach."

The three Seraphim around him laughed at the statement.

"Well, I guess we better return to the inn, before our Shepherd passes out," Mikleo commented with a grin. "We can continue this after Sorey had something to eat. I can't imagine going three whole days without food is a pleasant experience for a human."

"It's definitely not. Man, it's timed like this I wish I was born a Seraphim." Sorey mock-complained and walked with his friends back to the local inn.

While they were walking, Mikleo asked Symonne something.

"Symonne, I know you're still in the middle of telling us the story, but do you mind if I confirm something with you?"

"What is it?" The smaller Seraphim said.

"That woman you spoke of, I assume she is the Lord of Calamity?" Upon receiving a nod, the water Seraph continued. "So then, why couldn't you sense her?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the Lord of Calamity is supposed to emit an overwhelming amount of malevolence. That would mean she should turn everyone, be they human or Seraphim into a hellion in just a moment's notice."

"Well, malevolence doesn't work that quickly… believe me, I speak from experience." Symonne's face turned stone hard. "What makes this particular Lord of Calamity so dangerous is her ability to outright suppress the malevolence she's emitting."

"Say what?!" All three companions exclaimed at the same time, looking at Symonne in disbelief.

"It's true. I only realized this later, but she can suppress the effect of her own domain so far that even for a Seraphim she can come across as a normal human. I don't know what kind of willpower is needed to suppress that much malevolence…"

"It must be tremendous." Lailah finished for Symonne.

"What exactly was her goal at the village?"

"Can we talk about this later? If I jump back and forth in my story now, it'll only become more confusing for me." (~And the risk of me slipping up, even more, rises considerably~), the smaller female Seraph added mentally.

"Alright. Let us head back post haste. I am also intrigued as to how the story continues," Lailah stated.

(~Of course, you would. But I wonder, does she maybe already know about Velvet? Lailah has helped the Shepherds for far longer than I have been alive. But I wonder… something that has been bothering me from the very start. Velvet told me the original purification powers came from Maotelus. So how come Lailah has them now? There must be a connection between her and the Empyrean somewhere~)

XXX

At the inn, the keeper and his family provided the newest Shepherd with a generous amount of food. He almost forgot his table manners during that time and it was pretty obvious to the others that he wouldn't be able to listen to any other conversation at the moment. At times when he wasn't paying attention, Symonne would steal some food from Sorey's plate.

When Sorey was finally done with eating, with the innkeeper insisting that Sorey had to pay for nothing, Symonne guessed Alisha covered it already, the innkeeper had something else in store for Sorey. Apparently, Princess Alisha had sent Sorey his sword, a new backpack, a letter and some clothes, the latter which was the most needed at the time, since Sorey hadn't changed his clothes in quite a while.

After Sorey was done changing into the white garments, Symonne asked everyone to come into Sorey's room, so that they could have their privacy.

"Now then" the dark Seraph began "I know you are more than curious about my story and I am sure whatever Alisha has written in that letter is very important, however in all the excitement today, we have forgotten to tell Sorey something very important."

"Something important?" the human in question asked.

"Ah yes." Mikleo put a hand on his palm. "When we started talking about the Lord of Calamity, it completely slipped my mind that we made an important discovery about Sorey."

"An important discovery? About me? What are you talking about?"

"Allow me to explain," Lailah spoke up. "Sorey, are you familiar with seraphic artes?"

"Yeah, I am." Sorey pointed at his longtime Seraph friend. "I may not be a Seraph, but Gramps insisted on giving me a basic rundown of the Seraphim Artes. I was also almost always there when Mikleo was practicing his artes. Haha, remember when you accidentally froze Gramps' house shut?"

"Please don't remind me," Mikleo replied with a wry grin. "He almost made me copy every book that I accidentally ruined. Luckily the others were there to jump in."

"Yeah! It was the talk of the village for weeks to come."

Both Sorey and Mikleo laughed at the memories they were individually going through.

Symonne and Lailah looked at each other, with both of them smiling at their antics. Although Symonne's smile wasn't as honest as Lailah's was.

"Ahem, boys?" Symonne cleared her throat, getting the attention of the other two.

"Thank you, Symonne." Lailah nodded her head. "Now then, since you are already informed about seraphic artes, I will get straight to the main point. For you see Sorey, artes cannot only be used in an offensive and defensive, but also for the lag of a better term in a passive matter."

"A passive matter?" Sorey questioned.

"For example, I have noticed certain items you're carrying give you passive bonuses, like increasing your strength ever so slightly."

"Uh...that? Yeah, Mikleo and I found them in an old ruin we've been exploring not too long ago."

"It makes me wonder who would potentially give up such important equipment." Mikleo mused aloud.

"Yes, for you see, specific artes must have been used on these items in order to give the wearer these bonuses. While your items increase your strength, there are things that allow us Seraphim to focus better on our artes or give the wearer a barrier, protecting him from attacks. The effects of these artes are usually heavily limited, as it takes a lot of skill to even weave the simplest of artes into the metal of a sword."

Sorey nodded, absorbing the information he was getting like a sponge would absorb water.

"However, what makes these artes really amazing is that they cannot only be used on certain objects but also be implemented into living beings."

"Say what?!" Sorey involuntarily took a step backward. "I knew there were artes that could help someone in battle, like a barrier or something, but they don't last very long. But if I understand you correctly, then you're saying that in theory one can embed artes into the very body of someone, making them stronger and stronger with each arte?!"

"Yes," Lailah replied with a nod.

"Awesome!"

"Don't get any funny ideas," Symonne interjected, pointing her baton against Sorey's chest. "Only an extremely experienced Seraphim is capable of doing such a feat and I'm talking about multiple millennia of experience. For you see, each arte puts a strain on the body on whomever it is cast and if the body isn't ready to handle the arte, the best case scenario is the body suffering from some minor inconvenience, up to the worst case scenario of death."

Sorey gulped. "I-I understand. Don't worry, I won't ask from any of you to do something like this to me."

"Well" Mikleo spoke up "here comes the interesting part. Apparently, somebody already had this idea and has implemented an arte in your body."

"Wh-WHAT?!" Sorey exclaimed very loudly, taken completely by surprise by this information. "Someone… did that? But who? And why?!"

Sorey looked around his Seraphim friends, but all they could do was shake their heads.

"We have no clue," Symonne admitted. "And to be honest, I only stumbled upon it by accident, when I was checking your temperature. You had a bit of a feather the first day. In any event, as soon as I touched your forehead" Symonne's expression became serious "I noticed the arte. It was very well hidden."

"Very well hidden?" Sorey repeated.

"Gramps once told me that the best Seraphim can hide the magic the feeling an arte gives off from the common Seraphim," Mikleo explained. "It takes a lot of practice, but it is not impossible. What we're trying to say is, someone wanted to be 100% sure you or anyone else for that matter ever found out about the arte."

The human was finally getting overwhelmed by the flood of information he was receiving. He felt the need to sit down on his bed and slowly rub his temples. "Wow, I never thought this would happen when I left Elysium. One day I'm just a man exploring a new world and now I'm the Shepherd. But apparently, this is not the end of things, huh?" he smiled up at his friends.

"A lot, maybe. But it is necessary for you to know," Lailah stated. "As of now, we have no idea who is responsible for this, but we have figured out what arte it is and how to reverse its effects, at least for a very short amount of time."

"Really?"

"Yup." Symonne produced a small mirror from her pocket and handed it over to Sorey.

"Huh, what's this for?" He asked, looking down at his reflection.

"The arte embedded in you is an illusionary arte."

"An illusion?! On me?!"

At this point, Symonne was pretty sure the poor Shepherd would crack pretty soon.

"Yes, now watch carefully. Specifically your hair."

Like the other day, Symonne used her knowledge of illusionary artes to break the arte that had been implemented in Sorey's body. And like before the effect was almost instantaneous. His hair color changed from brown to black in a matter of seconds. But this time there was more. Now that he had his eyelids open everyone, Sorey included could see his eye color change from fiery yellow, orangish. Symonne almost lost her balanced.

(~No...this is… impossible. He… he looks just like…..!~)


	9. Chapter 9

~Lying is a fickle thing to do. The more you lie, the more you risk contradicting yourself.~

If there was ever a time to panic, now was definitely not the time! Yet Symonne found herself pretty close to straight up having a heart attack by what she was seeing. Dark black hair and orange burning eyes? Some might cough it up as coincidence and it wasn't really that much of a stretch to think of it as nothing more than a coincidence, after all: many humans shared various bodily traits. However, there was this insi, teensi, tiny detail, that little fact that Sorey's features had been hidden from the world, even himself! Calling it a coincidence now was definitely a stretch.

"Whoa! My hair! My eyes!" Sorey exclaimed in complete and utter disbelief. "Looks cool," he said after a second of admiring himself in the mirror, which Symonne had given him.

"It looks silly if you ask me," Mikleo said in full honesty. "Especially the hair. It just doesn't fit your style."

"You think maybe it'd look good with a little haircut? Oh, it's gone."

Indeed, just as quick as the new colors in his hair and eyes appeared, they disappeared just as quickly and were replaced by the usual brown and green respectively. That didn't help Symonne's anxiety at all though. Inside her head, she had already counted two and two together and knew or at least had a good idea as to why Sorey should look the way he looked a couple of seconds ago. She could also almost immediately think of the reason as to why she would want to hide his true heritage from him. However, there were still some things bothering her. Most prominent of them all were: Why had she never told Symonne anything about Sorey? And if not her, who did she ask to put the artes on Sorey?

"Symonne?" Laila's voice brought the darker Seraphim out of her thoughts. Symonne looked up to Laila and asked: "What is it?"

"Is something wrong?" asked the so-called "Lady of the Lake". "You seem troubled."

Great. Symonne had slipped up yet again and in the span of twenty minutes too. And now that Laila had said it out loud, the two boys were now looking at her as well. The smaller female Seraph doubted she could just give the excuse that she had just been wondering as to why Sorey had those artes on him, not if she had looked as troubled as she actually was. As a result, once again the Seraph needed to come up with something that would satisfy the three other occupants of this room.

"I'm simply wondering who put the arte on Sorey and why," the Seraphim replied, telling them at least the half-truth. "It doesn't make any logical sense to hide those specific body features and leave the rest untouched. It's not like he's a demon in disguise."

"Hmm… that's true." Laila conceded, putting a hand under her chin, thinking. "This is quite the mystery we have found ourselves in. Unfortunately, I have not the faintest idea as to who or why would do such a thing to Sorey."

The two female occupants of the room looked over to the male ones, who appeared to be lost in thought about the matter as well.

"You think Gramps has something to do with this?" the shepherd asked his longtime friend.

"Possible." Mikleo conceded. "But I have no idea why he would hide this fact from you, let alone put the artes on you in the first place. I think it is safe to say to cross him off the suspect list."

"Which leaves us with no one." Symonne pointed out. "Personally, I don't know any Seraphim who could do such a feat."

"Me neither," said Laila, slightly disappointed.

"So… what now?" asked Sorey, giving Symonne the opportunity to change the topic.

"I think we should put this on the backburner for now, so to speak," the darker Seraph spoke up. "I can see if I find something out on my way back. But I make no promises."

"That's all right. Your help is greatly appreciated." Mikleo replied, giving the smaller Seraphim a nod.

"Now that we have more or less cleared up this issue, Symonne, I would kindly ask you to continue your story," Laila asked her fellow female. Symonne looked over to the fire Seraph and nodded, understanding their curiosity.

"All right."

XXX

"As I have already mentioned, I followed the woman into the woods, curious as to what kind of business she possibly could have there. As far as I knew there was nothing to find there. It served as an occasional hunting ground for the locals, but that was as far as my knowledge went.

The woman walked for quite some time and pretty deep into the woods. There's not much I can really tell you since it was nothing more than a run out of the mill forest we were traveling through. For a time I considered just going back, seeing as this woman appeared to do nothing more than taking a stroll.

However, all of the sudden she stopped. I hadn't been paying too much attention to the environment, so it took me a second to realize what was happening. Right in front of us was a hellion's domain and a big one at that. It covered the back half of the forest and made the environment… weird to say the least. The trees had come alive, as in they had gotten faces and their tranches became hands. They even could turn their bodies around and did so in order to eye me and the woman in front of me. It certainly was a different experience from your normal hellion encounter.

The woman, however, seemed perfectly calm, as if this was nothing new to her. In fact, I almost had the impression that she was bored as she approached the hellion's domain. The trees got ready to strike and I was sure her to be a goner. But as it turned out, her gauntlet wasn't just an oversized accessory. A hidden blade came out of a hole I hadn't noticed up until this point. I couldn't exactly see how the mechanism works, but the blade itself proved to be masterfully crafted. With almost lazy swings she cut down each and every branch that came near her. I think that was the first time in my life I ever saw a hellion having a dumbfounded expression on their face. Those turned quickly into pure horror when she straight up kicked one of the trees out of the ground complete with the roots and sent it flying fifty feet or so away!

It was at this point that I realized that I wasn't just following a woman. My first thoughts were that I was following a Seraphim, who was on the hunt for the hellions. It made sense at first glance. She didn't have a domain of her own and she managed to take out a hellion with a single kick. But then I remembered that she was able to interact with humans. So something didn't add up. I had not much time to ponder over this contradiction, however. The woman, whoever she was, was keeping herself busy with cutting and kicking a path through the trees. And when I say cutting I literally mean her using her sword to cut straight through them, as if they were made of butter.

It might have been a good idea to turn back right at this very moment, especially when further following her meant entering a hellion's domain. But my curiosity got the better of me and so I followed her, making extra sure to keep a safe distance from her. Luckily the domain hadn't changed the land any more than it already did. I wasn't prepared to deal with any more transformed plants and as one might expect, there were plenty of hellions residing in this domain. Yet for some reason, they appeared to be more interested in the woman than in me. I guess they thought she had more meat on her bones than I. Still even those hellions proved to be no challenge for her. No matter whether they were animals turned evil, former soldiers or even evil spirits, her blade could handle them all. She used powerful kicks to get rid of any hellionized animal in her way. If I had to guess, I'd say she didn't deem them worthy enough for her to use her blade. How the former soldiers got lost in the forest in the first place, I don't know. But their armor was still mostly in good condition. It was no trouble for her. Her boots were so thick for a reason. They had hidden blades inside of them and with some careful aiming, she could take those out with a single strike each, exploiting weaknesses in the armor. But the ghosts and spirits…

I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. She cut them down as if they were actually corporeal. But they weren't. I already knew for a fact that it requires Seraphim Artes or at least an enchanted weapon to take those down. And enchanted weapons have their limits. There was no way she could have killed all of those hellions with just a simple enchanted blade.

I was getting a bad feeling about this. Yet, I threw caution to the wind once again and simply continued following her, myself dodging hellions as they came. Soon enough we reached her destination.

It turned out to be a hellion, namely the hellion responsible for the domain. It wasn't as horrifying as I imagine it would be, but it was huge. It looked like a holed out tree trunk with a green-skinned human child inside of it. In my life, I have seen plenty of hellions that take on that appearance, albeit they usually are smaller. It let out a scream as soon as it found the woman approaching its territory and crawled nearer almost immediately. But instead of taking on a fighting stance or even attempting to run away, she just stood there and waited for the hellion to come closer. I wasn't really sure what the woman was thinking, but I know that I was acting on instinct. As soon as the Hellion was close enough I started preparing the strongest fire arte in my entire arsenal, hoping to distract the hellion or even possibly scaring it away. But I acted too late. I wasn't even halfway done with my arte, when the hellion reached out with its huge branches, ready to flatten the woman in front of her. It never came down to this.

Out of nowhere, the woman jumped up towards the hellion. She jumped higher than should be humanly possible. The surprises didn't stop there. While she was flying in mid-air, her arm transformed! It turned into one gigantic demonic claw! The tree-hellion was just as much taken aback as I had been. It couldn't react quickly enough and from one moment to another it found its face to be ensnared by the claw. And here is when the hellion woman, because what else could she possibly be, revealed her true power. She started to eat the demon! Not with her mouth, but with her claw! It sucked the very life out of the hellion and with its life force followed the tree-hellion's malevolence! I can't recall ever having heard worse screams of agony, especially coming from such a monster.

I don't know how long it took for her to devour the demon. I was frozen in place from sheer shock. I could do no more than to watch as the hellion, who was at least ten times the size of the woman struggling to free itself from her grip. But it was for naught. Slowly yet surely the tree-hellion's struggle became weaker and weaker until it completely stopped and surrendered itself to its fate. Eventually, the hellion disappeared, the woman somehow having fully devoured the monstrosity. With the disappearance of the hellion, the domain disappeared as well.

That was hardly reassuring for me. Of course, I wasn't in danger of turning into a hellion myself anymore and the forest had returned to its natural state. But now I had the attention of the hellion eating hellion, who still looked hungry. She turned her attention directly to me and gave a smile that sent chills down my spine.

"Don't you know that it is impolite to sneak up on people from behind?" she asked in an amused tone.

I had seen what she had done and from that alone, I knew that in an open fight I wouldn't stand a chance against her. As such, I finally acted in a reasonable matter by creating as many clones of myself as possible and I began to run. I wasn't sure how long my clones would be able to last on their own, as they break down rather easily. The sound of an explosion happening behind didn't really reassure me of their longevity. In fact, they were defeated faster than anyone else had ever done before. I found this out the hard way. All of the sudden I found the human-like hellion landing in front of me! She was so close that I ended up ramming directly into her. Of course, she wasn't fazed in the slightest by the impact. Her demon arm had returned to normal and she immediately used it to slam me against a nearby tree. I lost my breath for a couple of seconds and my vision blurred for a little. Once I recovered, I could feel the cold hard steel of her blade pressing against my neck.

"Now then, tell me. What is a little, lonely Seraphim like you doing here all on their own?" she asked me in a sickly sweet tone. I am not sure how I managed to keep a mostly clear head, but it might be the reason as to why I am still alive today.

"N-nothing," I answered her, trying my best to keep my stuttering under control. "I was… doing nothing."

"Wrong," she replied in accusing tone "you have been following me the entire time. Now, I will ask you one more time and I heavily suggest you answer honestly. What are you doing here?" Her tone was slightly more aggressive.

Knowing that she wouldn't accept anything but the truth, I did just so. However, I was concerned that the truth wouldn't satisfy her. After all, I followed her purely out of curiosity. But what else could I say?

Luckily for me, she actually believed me. I could feel the pressure she put on my body decreasing, but her blade was still held against my neck.

"Have you ever heard of: "Curiosity kills the cat?"" she asked me rhetorically. "Well then, now that I know what you have been doing, the question is what I am going to do with you. I could eat you, but Seraphim don't really taste that good."

Up until today, I am not sure whether she was joking or being serious. I didn't dare to say anything, as it might just rub her off the wrong way and mean the end for me. At the same time, I was desperately trying to think of an arte that might just be able to save me.

"Tell me your name," she demanded and I answered.

"Symonne, huh?" she spoke aloud herself, before giving me her name. "My name is Velvet Crowe. And now that you know me, I have a little errand I need you to do for me."

"An errand?" I repeated confused. What could a hellion possibly want from a Seraphim like me? The answer? Spreading panic.

"Indeed. Go home and tell your little Seraph friends that the true Lord of Calamity has returned."

As soon as those words left her, it all of the sudden became very hard for me to breath. Looking around I could see that a new domain had appeared out of nowhere, darker and much stronger than the previous one. I looked up to the woman holding me in her clutches and she just smiled at me.

"I think this is sufficient proof that I am telling the truth, wouldn't you agree?."

I could only nod."

XXX

Symonne sat on Sorey's bed, hugging herself. Laila was quick to move beside her and give her fellow Seraphim a hug. Sorey's and Mikleo's expressions had turned stone cold after hearing the story.

"I thought for sure I would turn into a dragon," Symonne spoke, struggling to keep her voice straight. "Luckily I only lost consciousness. By the time I came to, she was gone and left me in the woods." Symonne successfully managed to fake a shiver. "As soon as I returned to Pendrago, I tried to find out as much as possible about this Velvet Crowe and why exactly she was calling herself the so-called "true Lord of Calamity"."

Sorey and Mikleo looked at each other for a moment, before turning their heads back to Symonne.

"And… did you find something?" Sorey asked, to which Symonne nodded. She was now looking down at her hands, not showing her face.

"It took me weeks. A lot of the records were disorganized or lost. But I found something, a document which had been copied over the centuries reaching at least a thousand years back in time. It depicted the detailed description of a woman wanted for a multitude of crimes. The destruction of a city, the murder of both civilians and soldiers, pirating, theft, the list was surprisingly detailed. It didn't lack the description of the demon arm, which she used to consume her enemies."

"Wait. A document dating a thousand years back?!" Mikleo exclaimed in shock and excitement. Sorey could only share the sentiment, but a feeling of dread was growing inside the stomach. "And the name of the woman was…"

"Velvet Crowe." Symonne finished. "Also known as the Lord of Calamity, the birth mother of all demonkind, the bane of humanity and devourer of souls."


	10. Chapter 10

~I remember the rumors that were spread about me and my friends in the past. It was at times simply hillarious with what the people came up with.~

Symonne figured she had done too well of a job this time. It had been ten minutes she had finished telling Laila, Mikleo and Sorei her made up story and the fire Seraph was still hugging her, petting her head and saying "comforting" (read: annoying) words.

"Uhh… Laila? You can let go now."

"Don't worry, Symonne. There's no need to be afraid anymore," the fire Seraph spoke in a soothing voice, completely ignoring the smaller Seraphim. Again. Symonne sighed. This was going nowhere. It looked like her acting skills were so good that she had triggered some kind of older sister instincts, which caused the red-clad Seraph to act like she did. Heck, her acting skills were so good that through the written word she had managed to deceive even more humans, even though that hadn't been her intention at all! Honestly, there was a reason there were so many plot-holes in her story!

Moving on, Sorey and Mikleo appeared to be in a deep discussion about the "information" they had received from their newly acquired friend.

"A hellion that eats other hellions?" Sorey spoke seriously. "Have you ever heard of such a thing?"

"No," Mikleo replied with a shake of his head. "It certainly wasn't mentioned in any of the records I have read and Gramps never mentioned something like this to us."

"So maybe it is unique to the Lord of Calamity?" Sorey theorized.

"It might be. Maybe that's how every Lord of Calamity was? Although at this point it is just pure speculation. While we're on the topic, have you noticed that the Lord of Calamity in Symonne's story has the appearance of a normal woman?"

"Oh yeah, there was that," the human remembered. "It's weird, isn't it? When Laila talked about the Lord of Calamity, I was imagining some big demon or maybe even a dragon. But a woman?" It was Sorey's turn to shake his head.

"It certainly is an enigma. And it will make looking for her pretty hard. She can practically blend in with other humans and spread the malevolence from within." Mikleo's eyes widened in realization. "That also means if she plays her cards right, she can turn people in high ranking positions into hellions! In the worst case scenario, she could destabilize an entire kingdom, which then again could lead to its downfall."

Sorey gasped as his mind registered the meaning of his best friend's words. "Then we have to stop her as quickly as possible!" he proclaimed.

"How?!" Mikleo countered. "Tracking her down won't be easy! She'll probably go by many aliases and if she's really smart, she'll change her appearance on a regular basis. And let's just say we do track her down. Do you really believe we stand a chance against an entity that is who knows how old?!"

Sorey gritted his teeth, but he had to concede the point. He considered himself a decent swordsman, but he was one who severely lacked in real combat experience. The same went for Mikleo. Whereas this Lord of Calamity was…

"Hey, wait a minute." Sorey put a hand under his chin and began to think. "If this Lord of Calamity is centuries old, how come she is still alive?"

"Well, she is a hellion, even if she looks like a human. They can live as long as Seraphim." Mikleo pointed out.

"Okay, then how come she's showing herself now?" Was Sorey's next question, getting himself a confused look from Mikleo. "I mean there have been a few Lord of Calamities throughout history. And if she is really that old, does that mean she just abandoned being the Lord of Calamity and now all of the sudden she shows up again? It doesn't make any sense."

"Huh, I haven't thought about that," admitted the water Seraph. He crossed his arms and frowned. "It really doesn't make any sense. It's not like she just went on vacation or something. A being like her must have left some marks throughout history. The only real possibility I can think of is that she was defeated by whoever was the shepherd back then, faked her death and bided her time? Did that make any sense?"

"It kinda does, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered," the human told his friend. "Man this is really weird. It's like having a gigantic puzzle in front of you, but you can't find any pieces that fit together."

"A fitting metaphor."

"Then how about we start with the easiest part of the puzzle?" Laila suggested, finally letting go of Symonne.

"What do you mean?" Asked Sorey.

"I mean we should start solving puzzles we actually have enough clues to solve, instead of focusing on something so complicated as this. For example, we could solve the "puzzle" as to what is written in the letter that Sorey received earlier."

Laila giggled when the two young men let out "Ahh"s of understanding.

"From there on we can tackle puzzle after puzzle, working ourselves up from the easiest to the hardest."

"What a way to say: let's take things easy for now," Symonne commented, handing the letter over to Sorey.

"All right, let's see here…

Dear Sorey,

I was surprised that you fainted so suddenly. I hope your rest at the inn was rejuvenating. When I learned that you can communicate with Seraphim, beings of divine nature who cannot be seen by ordinary people, when I saw you draw the Sacred Blade from the Lady of the Lake and quell the riot at the festival before my eyes…

My heart leaped with joy the like of which I've never known. The only thing I can think of to tell you is a sincere, heartfelt thanks. I hope you do not find this strange. Though I do think that my true feelings do not come across well in a letter.

I know that, as the Shepherd, you are soon to embark on a journey to save the world. But once you are awake, I would like you to come and visit me at my home.

P.S. - Did you have a chance to try on the clothes I got for you? They're modeled after the traditional garb of the legendary Shepherd. I hope they are to your liking."

Sorey looked up from the letter, having finished reading it.

"My, what a kind-hearted young woman," commented Laila with a smile gracing her lips. Sorey nodded.

"Yeah, seriously, I should be the one who's thanking her."

"Am I the only one who thinks she is already crushing on Sorey?" Symonne asked, causing the Shepherd to blush.

"W-what?!" he sputtered.

"Nah, that would be like the most cliché thing to ever happen." Mikleo waved off. "I personally think she is happy that Sorey saved her people a couple of days ago."

"If you say so…" Symonne trailed off, as she could hear a bell ringing outside. The others could hear it too.

"Is that a bell?" asked Sorey.

"It's ringing early today," commented Laila. "Usually it only rings, when the people are gathering at the cathedral for the-"

"It's the alarm bell!" Symonne realized, running outside.

"Hey! Wait for us!" Laila, Sorey, and Mikleo quickly followed the young Seraphim outside of the inn. Once there, they found that the streets were considerably packed, yet none of the humans were moving. Most of them were looking upwards towards the church where the bell was ringing and some were murmuring among themselves, wondering as to what was going on. Sorey too looked up and was about to ask some questions, when he noticed something from the corner of his eyes. Readjusting his vision, he spotted multiple shadows leaping from roof to roof.

"Over there!" he shouted, pointing with his finger. He only meant to give direction to his friends but ended up giving it to everyone who could hear him. The people looked up, some gasped, a woman shrieked and the general murmur increased.

Who were those maniacs jumping from building to building? Why were they doing this? Were they the reason for the alarm bell being rang?

Sorey heard all of these questions but ignored them. His mind was fully focused on the people, who were heading towards the city gates no doubt. He had a feeling had seen at least one of them somewhere before, but couldn't fathom where. That was until the figures were close enough for Sorey to make out more details on them and there was no way he would forget the looks of the hellion who killed one of his friends.

"It's the fox!" Sorey growled and made his way through the crowd before the three Seraphim could even register his words.

"Sorey, where are you going?!" called Laila out.

"Let's follow him!" Mikleo proclaimed and ran after his best friend. "Damn, he's such a hot head at times!"

XXX

While Laila and Symonne followed the other two, dodging humans as they came, Laila had a question for Symonne. "Does Sorey know one of the people up there?"

Symonne nodded. "Yes, he's a fox-hellion and an assassin. He tried to claim Princess Alisha's life multiple times as far as I understand. However, we managed to catch him last time and hand him over to the guard. Looks like his friends busted him out of his cell!"

"Oh, my." Was all that Laila could say.

Mikleo and Sorey in the meantime arrived at the market square. As one might expect it was, even more, choke full of people, but it appeared as if the assassins had changed direction for some reason and were now heading for the west wall, instead of the city gates. Why? The two didn't know, but one thing was clear.

"We need to stop them." Sorey gritted out of his teeth. "Somehow."

"I have an idea." Mikleo watched the movement of the assassins carefully, trying to deduce where they would go. After they were close enough, Mikleo unleashed a small part of his magic and only froze a small part of the roof. The ice appeared so quickly that the fox had now time to react and slipped. With a comical cry, the fox fell off the roof. The people down below ran away quickly enough in order to not get squashed by the falling hellion. It conveniently gave enough space for Sorey, Mikleo, as well as the newly arriving Laila and Symonne to step in front of the hellion who was slowly getting off the ground.

"I didn't know they let animals roam outside of the zoo!" Sorey shouted angrily, readying his sword.

"You…!" The fox growled, giving Sorey a death glare that sent shivers down the onlookers' spines.

"This is the last time you'll stand in my way!" the fox shouted, readying his claws. For the people around it looked like he had just drawn a multitude of daggers seemingly out of nowhere.

"Be careful, Sorey," Symonne advised. "We cannot use our Seraphic artes here. The risk is too high for a civilian to get caught up in the crossfire."

"Alright," the human nodded, understanding.

What appeared to be at the exact same time, Sorey and the hellion charged at each other, their blades clashing against each other. The people screamed horrified, as they were now witnesses of a real fight going on between the Shepherd and this unknown person. The spectacle made them completely forget the assassins on the roof, who saw another problem coming: the local guard.

"Quick. Get the smoke bombs ready," their leader whispered. "We'll use them as soon as the guards arrive. One of you, knock out Lunarre or else his temper will cost us our lives."

The group of assassins nodded and began their preparations.

("Damn you, Lunarre.") Their leader thought to themselves. ("Why can't you control your temper for once! Wait. Is that… ice?") The leader kneeled down and inspected the spot. ("It is ice! What's it doing here?") They shook their head. ("Doesn't matter. I have to focus now!")

 **I think it is obvious as to why I wrote this one so quickly. Sorry, but I felt the NEED to point this one thing out.**


	11. Chapter 11

The hellion counterattacked the Shepherd almost immediately, using his superior speed and agility in order to deal swift blows to the human. Sorey quickly found himself on the defensive, as he was parrying strike after strike from the Hellion. He surprised himself while doing so. For you see, the last time he and the Hellion fought, the Shepherd had had a hard time keeping up with the fox. Now, however, it was almost like the assassin was slower than he had been the previous day. Was this because he had still to fully recover from the blows dealt with him by Symonne?

Whatever the case, Sorey wasn't about to let this opportunity go to waste. Parrying yet another strike, Sorey pushed his opponent back with his blade and took the offensive once again. Sadly the Hellion was by far more experienced as the human. Seeing an immediate opening, Lunarre shot forward with his left arm, his blades aiming at Sorey's right shoulder.

Too late the human noticed the metal swiftly approaching his shoulder.

"Ah!" The young man screamed in pain as the dagger easily pierced his new clothes as well as his flesh. Almost immediately the white-robed began to turn red, due to Sorey's life essence flowing out of him.

"Sorey!" he heard his Seraph friends shout behind him. Several audience members gasped or screamed in shock.

"Ehehe, you're in over your head, boy," the Hellion taunted the human.

"Oh really?" Sorey asked, glaring at the assassin, before out of nowhere, he rammed his injured shoulder against the Hellions face. Both fighters screamed in pain, Sorey more so than Lunarre, as the dagger was still stuck on his shoulder. The fox in the meantime staggered backward, holding his now free hand against his cheek. A little bit of blood dropped out of his mouth, due to him having accidentally bitten his tongue. He regained his composure just in time to see the Shepherd charging right at him, his own weapon still stuck in the human's shoulder.

Sorey let out an unholy scream of rage, as he held his sword with both hands. He didn't know how he managed to keep fighting, but quite frankly, he didn't care at the moment. With only one dagger left and no room to dodge, Lunarre barely managed to block the incoming assault of strikes that Sorey quite literally hammered down on him. Unlike during their previous encounters, however, the attacks were without grace or precision for that matter. It appeared as if the wound had severely limited Sorey's options for attacks, but apparently, this didn't seem to slow down the Shepherd in any way. If anything, it appeared as if he was attacking with more vigor than before.

"Sorey, what are you doing?!" Mikleo shouted in surprise and shock. "You need to run away, you're injured!"

"You'll only make it worse, you idiot!" Symonne shouted after him, but to the surprise of both, he didn't listen. "What's wrong with him? He knows we can't help him out now!" Symonne growled.

"I don't know. He has never acted this way," Mikleo replied in a helpless manner.

"He is fighting like he has been possessed," Lailah muttered under her breath.

Lunarre in the meantime decided he had had enough. With a daring jump, he rolled right behind the Shepherd, who managed to cut a few hairpieces off the rolling Hellion. The Shepherd's blade hit the cobblestone ground, sending vibrations right through his arms. He grunted in pain as those vibrations reached his still bleeding wound.

"Sorey, watch out!" shouted Mikleo. Lunarre had been about to use the dizziness the Shepherd was going through and was ready to give his opponent a fatal step in the back. Luckily it appeared as if the warning had come just in time. With whatever inhuman durability Sorey was mustering up this day, he raised his sword and turned around and managed to block the attack at the last possible moment. However, the effects of the blood loss were starting to take a toll on the human. He couldn't hold his sword any longer, not even with two hands. The blade became too heavy for him to handle and he dropped it unceremoniously to the ground. Several gasps could be heard from the audience, who just kept watching the spectacle. Mikleo, being fed up with doing nothing, immediately positioned himself between Sorey and the Hellion. He held his staff defensively. Lunarre acted as if the Seraphim wasn't even there.

"Ehehehe, looks like your journey finds an early end, Shepherd. Any last words?"

"Now!" The voice came from neither Sorey nor Mikleo. In fact, from the sound of things, the voice appeared to have come from behind the two. Mikleo barely saw the round, dark objects hitting the ground, before they suddenly exploded in rapid succession, covering the area in smoke. The sudden appearance of the smoke, as well as the noise of the explosions, had an immediate effect on the civilians. They screamed in shock and fear, more than a few people shouted: "Fire!", which ultimately resulted in a mass panic.

The citizens ran around like chickens who had their heads cut off, trying to get as far away from the area with the supposed fire. Due to the lack of any kind of organized evacuation, the people hindered themselves and the incoming guard force. Sorey, Lunarre and all of the Seraphim present didn't notice much of the happenstances around them. All of them had been caught off guard in the smoke and were coughing heavily. Sorey had fallen to the ground, his opponent was stumbling around until one of the other assassins managed to knock him out.

"I got him. Let's get out of here," was all that the Shepherd and his Seraphim heard before the assassins disappeared for good this time. As the smoke cleared, it revealed an almost complete desolate plaza. Sorey was still lying on the ground and bleeding, Mikleo had fallen to his knees, due to stumbling over a basket that someone had dropped. Lailah and Symonne had been knocked to the ground in the confusion and were just getting back up. All of them were breathing heavily, due to them having breathed in a good amount of smoke.

Sorey coughed heavily, his shoulder aching as he did so. "Ow… that…hurts…" the human growled, reaching his injured shoulder with his hand. It was then that he noticed that the dagger was still stuck in there.

"Don't move!" Lailah exclaimed and quickly ran up to her grounded vessel. Mikleo and Symonne followed suit.

"We need to pull the dagger out!" Mikleo exclaimed.

"Careful," Symonne admonished "this dagger is acting as a plug. Once we pull it out, even more blood will stream out. We'll have to be quick with our healing artes."

"We also need to clean the wound first, lest we risk his shoulder getting infected," Lailah reminded them all.

"I can do that with my water artes," Mikleo informed his fellow Seraphim.

"Good." Lailah nodded. "Then I'll heal him."

"And I take out the dagger." Symonne got into position and looked down on the pained expression of the Shepherd. "This will hurt. A lot," she told him.

"Can't be worse than Mikleo's cooking," the human joked in return and chuckled weakly.

"Okay, I guess I'll have all of the chocolate cake to myself."

"Hey, no fair."

"We can joke later. I'll pull out the dagger on three. One, two-"

"The Shepherd!" someone shouted, interrupting the Seraphim in their work. "The Shepherd is injured! I need a doctor!" Looking up, the Seraph trio saw that one of the guards had arrived on the scene and was quickly approaching the grounded human. Symonne, Lailah, and Mikleo managed to get out of the way just in time before the guardsman fell on his knees and inspected Sorey's body from top to bottom.

"Shepherd, Shepherd! Can you hear me?!" The guardsman gently shook Sorey's body, who groaned in pain.

"Yeah…sorry. I don't… feel very…. talkative… right now…" Sorey responded in a lighthearted fashion.

"Hang in there, Shepherd. I will take you to a doctor." The guardsman carefully took Sorey in his arms, bridal style and ran as quickly as he could towards the palace grounds.

"Damn it! We have to follow him!" While Mikleo shouted those words, he was already on the run. Symonne and Lailah gave each other a quick look, before following him.

"At the rate, Sorey is getting into fights, he might state the record of the Shepherd who had been alive the shortest," Symonne commented to herself.

XXX

Sorey oh so wished that he had lost consciousness because the pain he experienced before was nothing compared to what he was going through right now. The doctor had come to the same conclusion as the three other Seraphim, namely that he had to take swift actions in order to save the young man's life. As such, he had taken out the dagger without any warning and went ahead to clean the wound with water and clean cloths. He never used the same cloth twice and asked the servants of the house owner to bring him fresh water on a regular basis. At least he had been considered enough to give Sorey a thick piece of wood to bite into, although this was more of a precaution, so the patient didn't accidentally bit off his tongue.

Alisha, who had been generous enough to offer her housings, watched from the doorframe with a worried expression. She hadn't been part of the guard forces chasing the assassins, a direct order from her guard superiors, seeing as she was a potential target. But she pretty much didn't listen. A good thing too, since she came across her guard colleague carrying the Shepherd and told him to bring Sorey to her house. She would probably face repercussions very soon for not following orders, but that was something she could live with.

"You're very lucky, you know that?" the doctor told Sorey, as he cleaned the wound. "The dagger didn't pierce through your blood vessel, so your shoulder should heal just fine, once I am done." The doctor carelessly threw the used cloth away and went to his bag. He took out some clean bandages, as well as some gel, went back to the Shepherd and proceeded to rub the gel on the wound. Sorey would have howled if he could.

"Sorry, but if you plan to use your arm anytime soon, the gel is absolutely necessary. It is interesting, you know? The recipe for creating gel hasn't changed in over millennia, not because people haven't tried to create a better formula, but because it seems as if we have reached already the maximum potential of what we can do with gels."

Any other time Sorey would have found this tidbit of history interesting. But right now he was too distracted by the pain going through his shoulder. When the doctor was done with the gel, he finally grabbed the bandages and wrapped them around the shoulder.

"Almost done, Shepherd. We can't let you die on the first day of the job, can we?" the doctor joked. "I sure hope the legends of the Seraphim and their healing magic are correct because I won't be able to fix you up every time."

Sorey let out a breath through his nose in relief. The numb pain he was experiencing now through the pressure of the bandages, was nothing compared to ten seconds ago. In a way, this kind of pain was strangely comforting, knowing that his suffering had come to an end.

"There we go," the doctor tied the bandages up in a tight know, so they wouldn't come off that easily. He took the wooden stick out of Sorey's mouth, who swiftly proceeded to spit out the few tiny barks that had settled on his tongue.

"Thank you… friend," Sorey looked thankful at the doctor, who just smiled in return.

"It is no problem, Shepherd. After all, it is the duty of a doctor to save lives. Have a good rest, Shepherd. You need it."

To this, Sorey had to laugh. "I just woke up this morning from three days of sleep."

The doctor chuckled in return. "Well, I guess I can allow you to walk around. But not more and not by much. You need to rest the wound a little bit, so your body can repair the damage efficiently. Also, try not to strain your shoulder more than necessary, until your wound is fully healed."

"Okay, thanks again, doctor."

"Not a problem. Farwell Shepherd. I hope the next time we meet, it will be under more pleasant circumstances."

The doctor turned around and left the room. Outside, he paused in front of the princess and spoke to her. "I recommend changing the bandages at least every second day. Also, someone should rub new gel on the wound before doing so. It will speed up the healing process tremendously."

"Thank you for your help, doctor," Alisha bowed her head. "Be assured, you will be paid for your expenses."

"I appreciate it, Princess Alisha. But rest assured, I would have helped him even without payment. Like I told the Shepherd, it is the duty of a doctor to save lives."

"That is very noble of you. We were lucky you happened to be in town. Calling one of the royal physicians would have taken longer and by then it probably would have been too late."

"You flatter me, Princess. But I am sure my colleagues would have done just as good of a job, if not a better one than me. Well, I am very sorry, but I have to cut this conversation short. I have heard there is a disease going around in the nearby village and I wish to help in any way I can."

"Certainly, doctor. Though, I am not sure if you can reach it as of now." Alisha frowned. "A recent storm destroyed the bridge leading to the village. Repairs have been ordered, but I am not sure if they're done as of now."

"That is most unfortunate," the doctor said, frowning himself. "But thank you for the forewarning, Princess. I'll be on my way then. With any luck, the workers have built a provisional bridge that I can use. Have a good day."

"Wait!" Alisha shouted after the doctor, who stopped at the door that led outside into the noble district. "I just noticed, you never told me your name."

"Ah. My apologies. In all the hurry, it must have slipped my mind. My name is Crowe, Laphicet Crowe. Doctor and prideful self-proclaimed scholar," the blond young man with the amber-colored eyes introduced himself with a bow.

"Prideful self-proclaimed scholar?" Alisha questioned, not being able to hide the amusement in her voice.

"Yes, you see, I have been gathering knowledge about practically anything since I was a child. It has always been my dream to wander the world and discover new things," he chuckled, shaking his head. "My sister told me I should get myself a wife, who can cook and settle down, but that was not a life for me."

"So, if you wanted to become a wandering scholar, why are you a doctor now?" the princess asked, causing Doctor Crowe to chuckle again.

"That would be my sister's fault. Our parents died, when we were relatively young, as such she, my other sister, my step-brother and me had to take care of ourselves. She hunted practically every day and oftentimes came back with all kinds of injuries. As such, I gained practical medical knowledge at a very young age. And with that, I thought to myself: Why shouldn't I just become a wandering doctor?"

"I see." Alisha was clearly fascinated, but also a little sad about the unusual background of the doctor. "I am sorry for your loss."

"Don't be," the young doctor waved off. "It's all in the past. We need to let the past go eventually in order to move on. Now then, this has been a pleasant talk, but I really should get going. Farewell, Princess."

"Farewell doctor. And safe travels."

"Thank you," the doctor bowed his head, before finally leaving the house. Once he was outside and on the road, Laphicet noticed that there were a lot of patrols going around the streets. Just by passing by, he could hear how several people were questioned about the assassins, not only the one that escaped but his cohorts as well. Once he was on the streets where the common people went on with their day to day basis, he could hear the distress coming from their collective voices. The fact that an assassin escaped from the prison and the fact that the Shepherd got injured by said assassin had a lasting effect on the overall mood of the people.

"You have a lot of work to do, Shepherd Sorey," Laphicet mumbled to himself. "Let's just hope you will do a better job than your predecessor."

XXX

Bienfu wasn't sure what he should think off, as he watched Velvet reading through one of the many documents that were scattered across her desk. She was really dedicated too, reading through every single line, putting a wax-emblem on it and signing the document with her own name or just downright refusing it by crossing the entire text out.

On the one hand, this was just like Velvet. Dedicated to her work, not signing anything rashly, but rather going through everything thoroughly, before deciding what to do with it. On the other hand, this was just so unlike Velvet! Bienfu just couldn't picture the Lord of Calamity doing deskwork and yet here she was doing it right in front of him! Velvet was a person who took action, who did everything herself, if at all possible and only relied on others when she was out of her element.

Bienfu sighed and closed the book he had been reading. He couldn't focus on it anyway, not with everything that Velvet had told him, ever since their encounter in the library. He turned his head towards the window, where he could see a flock of birds flying outside. He wondered what Miss Magilou would think about the entire situation until he realized that she would probably laugh until she was out of breath. Afterwards, she would insist on becoming Velvet's court jester or something like that and probably irritate the Lord of Calamity, whenever she was busy with something mundane, like the aforementioned paperwork.

"What?" he heard Velvet suddenly speak up. Looking at her, he could see her holding one of the documents in her hand. "Why do they think I would approve of that? Sometimes I wonder what they teach nobles these days..." With a swift movement of her feather, the document was rejected and placed on a pile specifically designated for those kinds of documents.

Bienfu decided to get off and jumped on the desk Velvet was working on. She didn't really seem to mind or probably didn't notice, as she was busy reading through the next piece of paper already. Curiously, Bienfu picked up one of the papers and skimmed through it. Apparently, this was a request from Captain Sergei, asking for additional funds for his knightly order. As for reasons, he claimed that with the increasing tensions between the various kingdoms, the military should be brought up to date with the newest weapons and armor, in case of a conflict. Bienfu could definitely see Velvet approving this request. She had always been vigilant when it came to the group's own equipment and oftentimes even consulted Rokurou a lot when it came to new blades for her gauntlet.

"Boring, isn't it?" Velvet spoke out all of the sudden, getting Bienfu's attention. The Normin turned around and looked up at Velvet.

"Yeah." He didn't even try to deny it. "It was way more fun helping out on a pirate ship. We would sing, tell stories and jokes, it made work a lot of fun."

"Well, I can't really entrust you with any of that," Velvet motioned all over her desk "but I think I have something else for you."

"Really? You do?" he asked in an exciting matter.

"Mhm. As of late, someone has been selling "Elixir" to the noble houses at a steep price. I decided to buy one of the bottles myself and tested it."

"Huh, but, you can't taste things. Or can you?" Bienfu asked, tilting his head.

"I may not be able to taste anything, but blood, but I can still feel the effects of actual Elixir," Velvet informed the Normin. "Whatever that was, it was not Elixir. Someone is making a huge amount of money with this scam and I would very much like to know who thinks he can do that right under my nose. I can't rely on the obvious methods for this investigation, as the two of us know how easy it is to bribe guards."

Bienfu nodded, understanding. Back in the day, the Shadow Guild had a lot of guardsmen in their service. Guards were oftentimes bored, underpaid or both, so by adding a little excitement and money to their life was often enough to secure their loyalty.

"You want me to find out who's behind this?"

"Yes." Velvet shoved her chair back and stood up. "I will give you all of the information I have managed to gather on my own, but it's not much."

"Don't worry, Velvet. Secret Agent Bienfu is ready to do anything for your cooking!"

At this Velvet had to laugh. "I should have figured."


	12. Chapter 12

_~Being a therion, I, of course, have to consume malevolence on a regular basis. However, since at the same time I am a ruler, I am having a hard to find actual time going out and hunt for my prey. I also cannot rely on prisoners randomly turning into demons and on a personal level, I would like to avoid raising the crime rate in my city, just so I can have a decent meal. As one might see, I needed a solution, lest I starve to death. And as luck would have it, I actually found one.~_

"Do you really have to go?" Sorey, who was still lying in the guest bed Alisha provided him with. Symonne, who was standing to the side of said bed and nodded.

"Yes. No offense Sorey, but I really need to get going now." She readjusted the backpack she was carrying. "My friend is waiting for me and I promised her to be back as soon as possible."

"Ah, I see. It's no problem." Sorey nodded. "I hope we can meet again in the future. I'd also like to meet your friend as well."

Symonne smiled. "I'm sure she'd love that. If you happen to come to Pendrago, I should be able to introduce her to all of you." The seraphim nodded towards Lailah and Mikleo who were standing right next to the door.

"Until next time, Shepherd. And good luck on your journey. You will need it, trust me."

"Good luck to you too. And safe travels."

Symonne nodded once again and turned towards the door. She gave two final nods towards her fellow seraphim, before exiting the room, followed by the building. Once outside, the dark Seraphim quickly made her way out of the city. Well, as quickly as it was possible for a small framed person such as Symonne. Not to mention the everlasting danger of getting run over by a random human or worse a horse.

As she was making her way through the city, Symonne listened in to some of the conversations she was hearing from passing humans. She only caught up bits and snippets, but from what she could hear the fight of the Shepherd against the escaped prisoner, who sadly managed to get away with the help of his assassin cohorts. Already people were exaggerating with their description of the fight that happened. Especially when it came to Sorey's role. This part was actually pretty interesting.

The way Sorey had kept on fighting Lunarre, despite being gravely wounded had branded itself into everyone's mind, including Symonne's. The Seraphim had tactfully not asked about that. She already knew that the Hellion had been responsible for killing a friend, so the wound had probably been responsible for snapping something inside the Shepherd's brain, thus causing him to go into such a rage. Luckily the amount of malevolence Symonne felt coming from the human had been barely noticeable, thus probably wouldn't leave an impact on him or his Seraphim friends.

The public had a different opinion on this matter. They saw Sorey's sudden outrage as some kind of "Righteous Wrath". Some even went so far as to say that it was the blessings of the Seraphim that allowed him to unleash his "Righteous Fury" and also allowed him to stand strong, despite losing a great amount of blood. That last statement was obviously one of those exaggerations, as anyone with some medical knowledge knew that when someone gets stabbed with a sharp object, the object works as a plug until it gets pulled out.

Symonne even ran into a group of boys, who were fighting each other with sticks. They proclaimed to be the Shepherd or shouted things like they would banish the demon (usually another boy in front of them, which led to arguments as to who played the Shepherd and who the demon) and of course, they talked of how they would become the next Shepherd when they grew up.

The dark Seraphim shook her head in slight amusement. If they actually knew what it meant to be the Shepherd, they wouldn't be so enthusiastic about it.

XXX

Later that day Symonne was reminded that the bridge leading to the river she needed to cross was no longer there. There were a lot of human workers in front of the river, but despite having their tools and materials at the ready, construction hadn't even started. It didn't take a genius to figure out why. The currents were way too strong and would drag any unfortunate soul into a rather wet grave.

Frowning, Symonne guessed she would have to freeze a part of the lake again in order to get across the water. While she was looking for a good spot (away from prying eyes) to work her magic on, Symonne spotted a familiar person speaking with one of the workers. Once that familiar person was done talking and the worker had walked away, Symonne approached the familiar person and made her own presence known by clearing her throat.

Laphicet Crowe turned towards the sound that from his perspective came out of nowhere and was a little bit surprised when he found a young looking Seraphim standing right in front of him.

"Symonne? I didn't know you were here," Laphicet stated with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course I'm here," Symonne answered in an as a matter of fact tone. "When your sister heard that they were holding a Sacred Blade Festival, she sent me here almost immediately. I guess you were drawn in for the same reason."

Laphicet let out a sigh and shook his head. "Doesn't Velvet have enough spies already? Why does she need you to do something so simple as to scout out this festival?"

Symonne gave him a flat look as if to tell him: "Did you really just asked that?" Out loud she said: "Do you really expect her to send a hellion to this kind of thing? Besides, I'm more reliable than any of those lackeys she keeps finding from who knows where."

Another sigh escaped Laphicet's lips. "I would be more comfortable knowing she would just eat them, rather than employing them."

"What, you want them to run amok across the land?" Symonne asked in a rhetorical fashion.

"Of course not," the blonde man replied. "Still, I don't approve of how she uses them to…"

"Farm malevolence?" Symonne finished, not being able to suppress the small grin appearing on her face.

"Tch," Laphicet had more success in suppressing his smile. "I guess that's one way of putting it."

"So, how have you been?" the Seraphim asked, wanting to move the conversation somewhere else.

"You know, the usual," the blonde replied. "Expanding my knowledge, helping the people where I can and contain malevolence wherever I can." He glared down at Symonne. "Neither you nor my sister are helping me in that endeavor I might add. Velvet is playing a dangerous game."

"At least she's doing something about the overall problem, rather than sitting back and seeing the world rot."

"Really?" the male questioned. "Because from my perspective, it looks like you two are doing just that?"

"Don't give me that, Laphicet," Symonne growled, glaring at the larger person. "You know exactly why we use Hellions, as well as the-"

The female Seraphim found herself interrupted by what could only be described as a small volcano erupting from a nearby mountain. Only when everyone looked up there was a clear lack of smoke and ashes in the air. There was, however, some more noise, before it eventually died down.

"What was that?" Symonne asked.

Laphicet's gaze hardened as he looked up towards the mountain. "I have heard rumors about a dragon living in the mountains. I haven't had a chance to go look for myself, but if that wasn't a dragon than at least it must have been a monster of a Hellion."

"A monster of a Hellion, huh?" Symonne echoed.

"You're not thinking-" Laphicet began, but was interrupted by Symonne waving him off.

"The more sources we find, the faster our plans progress. And also the less your sister has to rely on eating other hellions. Or do you have a better idea to help your sister with her curse?"

Laphicet didn't have an answer to that, which was answer enough to Symonne.

"I guess I have time for a little detour," the Seraphim mused to herself, while she started to make her way up the mountain.

XXX

"I'm honestly not sure whether I should freeze your skull solid or smash it a few times with a heavy blunt object," Mikleo told Sorey, who couldn't help but laugh sheepishly at the threat he was receiving.

"Yeah, I guess I do deserve that."

"More than just deserve! It's a miracle your arm is still intact! What were you thinking in the first place?! Fighting with an injury like that?! You should have backed off!"

Sorey looked down at the covers and let out a sigh. "I know, you're right. I should have backed off, but… I don't know."

"You don't know?" Mikleo asked in a doubtful tone. "You don't know what?"

"I'm not sure." Sorey paused. "I just… felt really angry all of the sudden, you know. I thought that if I didn't catch him now, he might hurt more of my friends or potentially kill them like he did with… you know."

Mikleo sighed and placed himself on the bed. "Yeah, I know, but still. In the future, you need to keep your temper in check. Remember it's emotional outburst like these that create the greatest amount of malevolence."

"Yeah… you're right." The human took in a deep breath. "I'm not even sure how I managed to keep on fighting like this. My shoulder is definitely complaining now."

Mikleo shrugged. "My guess is your anger must have blocked out the pain for long enough for you to be able to hold on. It reminds of the stories I read about soldiers accomplishing simply impossible feats, despite being gravely injured themselves. It looks like the same happened to you. Though, I'd prefer it, if you don't test it out in the future."

"Haha, you and me both."

During the whole exchange, none of the two boys noticed Alisha standing in the hallway and listening in to the seemingly one-sided conversation. However, the so-called "warrior princess" knew better. Sorey was obviously talking to his Seraphim friends and from the sounds of the Shepherd's voice, they were having a serious talk with their human friend. From the looks of things, they weren't happy with Sorey risking his life like he did and she could understand that. At the same time, it was due to Sorey's actions that the people of Ladylake finally seemed to grasp some hope of a better future, especially when the Shepherd himself was ready to take on assassins head on.

On the other hand, just by simply becoming the Shepherd, Sorey had already made himself considerable enemies. So far they had kept quiet and hopefully, it would stay that way until at least Sorey had recovered from his injuries, but sooner or later those vultures would make their move. And it was in everyone's best interest that Alisha was ready to help Sorey when the time came. No doubt Sorey will be completely out of his element. The so-called "vultures" were probably well aware of that and would try to exploit this lack of knowledge to the best of their abilities.

Unbeknownst to the princess, Lailah the fire Seraphim had been watching Alisha this entire time. So far the princess had done not much, aside from ordering her maid to prepare a meal for the Shepherd, as well as get the necessary medical supplies ready, for when it becomes time to change the bandages. The Lady of the Lake watched with intrigue, as the princess made her way into her own study with a determined expression on her face. Lailah followed Alisha and found out that the princess was busy writing a letter.

"I may not be able to fight Hellions," Alisha muttered to herself. "But I have plenty of experience "fighting" politicians."


	13. Chapter 13

~Being a daemon isn't all bad. Aside from having superior strength and in a lot of cases getting the ability to use magic, us daemons never have to worry about getting sick and we usually aren't affected by the weather either. Additionally, we recover from injuries a that would be lethal to a human. Given all of those benefits, it's no surprise that there are so many people out there ready to become daemons themselves.~

Sorey had to admit. He definitely could see the benefit of being royalty. The dishes that were served at Alisha's home were to die for. And there was so much of it. Back at home, Sorey practically had to care for himself, hunting his own food or trading his gains with the Seraphim who grew wheat, vegetables, fruits, etc.

"Wow, this was without a doubt the best meal I have ever had!" Sorey exclaimed in good cheer, causing Alisha to smile.

"I am glad it was to your liking," the princess replied. "How is your shoulder doing?"

"It's fine," the new shepherd assured, rubbing over his injury with his hand. "It stings a little bit, but that doctor sure did good work."

"Still, the doctor said you should take it easy and not strain your shoulder," Alisha reminded the shepherd.

"Haha, I know, I know," Sorey scratched the back of his head, using his uninjured arm. "Mikleo keeps reminding me about this non-stop." Sorey looked over to his longtime friend, who in return gave the Shepherd a meaningful look, before returning his attention to the book he was reading. To Alisha and the servants working in her household, it looked like the book was floating in mid-air, with the pages occasionally flipping over.

"He seems to care a lot about you," Alisha pointed out.

"Well we are childhood friends," Sorey pointed out. "We basically grew up together and learned together. We also explore ruins together, like the time where we found you."

"Yeah and I have to get you out of the traps all of the time," the water-seraph commented.

"Hey, you fell into a couple of traps, too!"

"Not as many as you."

"You're the one who set off the last one! I just happened to stand at the wrong place!"

"You mean the platform which the inscriptions told us not to stand on?"

Alisha giggled as she watched Sorey having a back and forth conversation with Mikleo, which eventually ended with the human scoffing and waving off his friend. Lailah too watched all of the proceedings, having just arrived at the dining room.

"Seeing you talking so casually to a Seraphim makes me ever so slightly jealous," Alisha admitted with an embarrassed smile. "I mean, I sort of did it with Symonne, but… it was a bit ponderous with her having to write down everything she wanted to tell me."

"Hmm, it's a bit of a roundabout, but maybe Mikleo and Lailah could talk to you in that fashion," Sorey suggested. "Maybe we should buy a diary or something, so we don't have to rely on singular pieces of paper."

"I believe I have a better idea," Lailah spoke up, approaching the table Sorey and Alisha were sitting on. Sorey turned around on his seat and looked at his newest friend curiously.

"Huh? You do?"

Upon receiving a nod from the Fire-Seraphim, Sorey's smile brightened and he turned towards Alisha, who was patiently waiting for Sorey.

"Lailah said there might be a way for you to speak to her and Mikleo."

"Really?!" the blonde almost jumped out of her seat, after hearing that. Sorey nodded and looked over to Lailah.

"Yup. She just needs to tell us what we have to do."

Mikleo decided at this moment to close the book he had been reading and put it away. Lailah instructed for Sorey and Lailah to stand in front of each other and hold hands.

"And this is really going to work?" Alisha asked. Sorey looked over to the older Seraphim and received an explanation.

"According to Lailah, when we hold hands, a part of my power as a Shepherd will be transferred over to you, as long as you're holding hands," the young boy recited. "But she also says that since I haven't been a shepherd for very long that it might not work."

"I see…" Alisha closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and exhaled the air slowly. After a moment of just standing in the room with her eyes closed, she opened her eyes and nodded. "Okay, I am ready."

"Well, here goes nothing," Sorey said and gently took Alisha's hands into his own. Both humans were a little tense in anticipation and they could each feel it. Sorey gave his fellow human a reassuring smile but quickly noticed that the princess wasn't paying him any attention anymore. In fact, the young royal was looking past him and directly at Lailah.

"Okay. Testing, testing-"

"Oh my gosh!" Alisha exclaimed out of nowhere and jumped backward. As a result, she accidentally let go of Sorey's hand and hit the table with the back of her legs.

"Oh, my," Lailah giggled at Alisha's misfortune. "It looks like it worked."

"Interesting," Mikleo commented and walked over to Lailah, so Alisha wouldn't have to look back and forth between Lailah and himself. The princess in the meantime had gathered herself and was at the receiving end of a cheeky grin on Sorey's part. The royal cleared her throat and suppressed the upcoming blush.

"Shall we try again?" Sorey asked.

"Yes, let's," Alisha replied eagerly and walked back into position. Swiftly she offered her hands to Sorey, who took them.

"Amazing," the blonde breathed out. "I can see them! Sorey, I can actually see them!" she exclaimed.

"Really?" Sorey asked.

"This is surprising," the Fire-Seraph stated and walked up to the two humans. Her gaze was entirely focused on the princess' during that time. Their eyes kept being interlocked until Lailah stood right next to Sorey.

"This is unusual. It seems that Sorey's latent powers are considerably stronger than I first thought. To be able to perceive us just by holding his hand…" The female seraph appeared to be amazed.

"That's Sorey for you." Mikleo crossed his arms, suppressing a grin. "What he makes up with talent, he lacks in the brain department."

"Hey!" Sorey turned around, offended. He made sure that he was still holding one of Alisha's hands. Mikleo grinned at his longtime friend, causing the human to groan.

"Still, I do not remember a Shepherd having this much talent," Lailah stated, before addressing the princess. "But before anything else, it's fortunate we can talk like this, princess. My name is Lailah, a pleasure."

"L-likewise," Alisha sputtered, mentally scolding herself. "You might already know this, but for the sake of politeness, I am Princess Alisha. It is an honor to meet you Lailah. You too, Mikleo."

"It's nice to meet you too. I am Mikleo, a Water-Seraph. Hm, I never thought I would be able to talk to a human aside from Sorey of course. If you don't mind, I would like to use this opportunity to ask you a few questions that have been on my mind concerning human society."

"Of course. It would be my pleasure answering every question that might be on your mind," the princess answered. "If you don't mind, I must admit I am rather curious about Seraphim society as well."

"Then I guess it's decided," Lailah happily clapped her hands together. "Since Sorey is still injured, I'm afraid he won't be able to perform his new duties until he has fully recovered. We could use this time to get to know each other better."

"That sounds great! Though, I am still allowed to go outside, right? I'd love to explore Ladylake a little more." Sorey sounded like a sick child, pleading with his parents to be allowed to play outside.

"We'll see," Mikleo said unimpressed. "Given our recent luck, I wouldn't be surprised if Hellions suddenly attacked us in brought daylight in the middle of the street."

"Oh, come on. Now you're just being pessimistic," his human friend retorted.

"I believe I am being realistic here," came the immediate reply.

Lailah giggled at the two friends' antics. "You two sound like siblings," she said good-heartedly.

"Gramps would often say that as well," Sorey commented. "But given everything that happened, we might as well be siblings, huh?"

"What? Are you expecting me to call you brother all of a sudden?" Mikleo asked, not sounding opposed to the entire idea.

"Hey, I was just saying. I don't mind if you keep calling me Sorey."

"I believe I'll let the servants have us served tea and a few biscuits," Alisha chimed in.

"Great idea," Lailah agreed. "Oh, biscuits. It has been so long since I had my last one."

As such, the group came together in the living room and started having a friendly conversation with one another. Although maybe Alisha and Sorey should have minded not to hold hands the entire time, at least not when the servants were present. As it just so happened, two female maids came into a bit of a talk with one another, when they met in the kitchen. As one might imagine, this would be the start of a very considerable rumor mill.

XXX

Later in the evening, Sorey, Mikleo and Lailah were overseeing the entire city of Ladylake from a vantage point in the upper parts of the city. Sadly Alisha wasn't able to join them, as she just couldn't put off her duties for too long. As such, only those three could go out and watch the sunset.

"What a view," Sorey commented. "It's not as beautiful as back at home, but the buildings do give the sunset a certain charm."

"It's wonderful," Mikleo agreed. "Too bad about all of the malevolence though. It kinda ruins the mood."

"Isn't there anything that can be done about this?" the human asked.

"There is," Lailah spoke up. "However, as I said earlier, you're in no condition to perform your duties with the injury you received."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But still, I am actually capable of getting rid of the malevolence?"

Lailah nodded to the question. "Indeed. But for now, we have to leave it be. Luckily, your actions already have an effect on the city."

"I'll say. I feel much better ever since Sorey became the Shepherd," Mikleo looked at his friend with pride. "But it's still there. I don't know how you managed to live here with all of the malevolence, but I don't think I could live here for even a year."

"The power of purification does protect me to a certain extent," Lailah conceded. "But that doesn't mean I am not uncomfortable around an area infested with malevolence."

"And it's not only Ladylake, right? The Lord of Calamity is responsible for doing this in more areas than just this city, correct?" the human asked. Surprisingly Lailah shook her head.

"The Lord of Calamity is not necessarily responsible for all of the problems in the world." The female Seraph looked thoughtfully into the sky. "Sadly, humans have always been prone to fall victim to malevolence. Be it a lack of faith, evil intentions or simply bad luck in life, anything can cause a human to fall victim to their darker thoughts. However, malevolence being prevalent at such a massive scale is definitely the doing of the Lord of Calamity."

"On top of that, we're not dealing with any Lord of Calamity," the male Seraph spoke with worry in his tone. "If Symonne's information is accurate, then we're dealing with the very first Lord of Calamity here. What was her name?"

"Velvet Crowe," Sorey supplied. "It sounds surprisingly human, now that I think about it."

"Velvet Crowe… I believe I have heard the name at some point in my life, but I can't remember where." Lailah put a hand under her chin, thinking.

"Given that it's a rather normal name, it's possible you just met someone who had the same first or last name," Mikleo suggested. "But back to the matter at hand, if she really is the very first Lord of Calamity, then she'll be way more dangerous than any of the others."

"How so?" Sorey asked.

"Think about it, Sorey. How much experience she could have possibly gathered all her life. How strong she might have become over time."

"But why come back now?" the human asked.

"I think that's a question we have to ask her ourselves."

XXX

Being a spy wasn't as romantic as some novels would love to make it out to be. In fact, it was a high risk, high reward job, although that reward more often than not ended up with a dagger in your back, as a way to get rid of witnesses. Of course, that only went as long as you were an average human.

Lana scoffed, as she listened in to the conversation between the accursed Shepherd and his accursed Seraphim. She would love to do nothing more than to rip the trio's throats out right here and there, but orders were orders. And she saw what happened to the last guy who disobeyed an order from the Lord of Calamity.

"In any event," she heard the boy, Sorey, speak up again "standing around and speculating won't bring us anywhere. How about we go and see the sights while there's still light?"

"Sure, why not?" the blue Seraph agreed. "Now that there are fewer people around, I'll hopefully be able to actually enjoy the view."

"Then let's go!" the lady of the lake exclaimed. "It will be interesting to see how much the city has changed in all these years."

Lana had to suppress a growl escaping her throat as the Shepherd and his companions passed the bench she sat on. She acted like she was writing something down in her diary when in all reality she wrote down everything noteworthy from the conversation she just overheard, along with the occasional doodle being drawn, showing her ripping the Shepherd apart in a variety of ways.

After she was sure that the three people she just spied on had left, the spy got up from the bench and casually walked out of the noble district. She ignored some randomly passing nobles making comments about her, as Lana wasn't sure if she could keep her bloodlust in check otherwise. It certainly got better once she entered the marketplace and generally the streets where the ordinary people lived. Given the casual clothes she was wearing, she indeed blended in better.

As she made her way through the streets, she occasionally would see one of her fellow Hellions on the road, but it wasn't like she had a special relationship with any of them. They were just Hellions. Half of those dark souls weren't even aware they had turned into monsters.

"But that will soon change…" the maid mumbled to herself, as she made her way into a back alley. There she took a couple of turns until she stood in front of a pretty run down inn. The sign had long since fallen off and was leaning against a wall that had more holes in it than any cheese in the world. The door wasn't even closed, just hanging there half-opened. Lana was about to enter the building when she felt someone touching her shoulder.

"Why, hello there," a slurry male voice spoke up. The owner of the voice violently turned Lana around and she found herself coming face to face with a man wearing filthy clothes and having a nose as big as a child's fist. His hair was unkempt, he smelled, his shoes had holes, he was bulky and his bare arms showed a multitude of scars.

"What's a little thing like you doing here?"

Lana wasn't in the mood for any conversation, when it was fairly obvious what the poorly excuse of a man was after. Without any warning, Lana's fingernails extended into twelve centimeter long blades, which she used to behead the man in front of her. Blood sprayed onto her clothes and face, but this minor nuisance didn't faze her in the slightest. Before the corpse even fully collapsed to the ground, she had already made her way inside the building.

Surprisingly, the inside of the building wasn't messy or anything, just dusty. Sure the tables and chairs looked like they needed to be replaced, but overall the furniture had been neatly placed into three short rows. Behind a counter stood an old man, who looked bored out of his mind. He barely raised an eyebrow when Lana entered the scene and approached him.

"You could at least make an attempt to hide the corpse," the old man spoke in a gruff voice.

"No one will miss him," Lana waved off.

"At least kill them in a way that makes it look like a human did it. Most people down here can't afford a sword sharp enough to behead someone! Pierce their hearts or their body multiple times, but don't behead them, rip them apart or do what you did to poor Johnny last week."

The spy maid rolled her eyes and placed her book on the counter.

"It's not like the guards bother coming here in the first place," Lana retorted. "And no one who lives here actually bothers calling the guards when something happens."

The old man let out a sigh. "Sometimes I wonder why I even bother explaining the meaning of subterfuge to you."

"I am subtle," Lana insisted. "It's just that I need a little bit of an outlet every now and then."

"Whatever. But if we get caught, I blame everything on you." The old man shook his head. "By the way, what's the color?"

"Still green, maybe a bit yellowish," Lana replied. "Alisha… she's not the most productive of the bunch if you understand what I mean."

The old man grunted, nodding. "She's an idealistic child who hasn't had much experience in the real world. Give her a couple of more years. Then she's either dead or just like all the others. Say, you have been close to the Shepherd, right?"

"Please don't remind me," Lana sighed. "I have to serve him and those Seraphim all kinds of things the entire day, all the while pretending I didn't see or hear any of them. On the upside, I think our lady will be pleased with the information I have managed to gather."

"Be careful, though," the old man advised. "The last thing we need is having a bunch of Seraphim on our trail."

"Will you stop worrying already?" Lana complained. "It's the same every time I come here. You worry, worry and worry even more. Give it a rest already, old man. We are changing the world!"

"I will give it a rest when the world has finally changed. Get out of here already, before you're being missed up there," the old man said.

"Just make sure you do your job, old man. Unlike you, I actually have work to do."

XXX

By the time Lailah, Mikleo and Sorey made it back to Alisha's estate the sun had almost set on the horizon. A maid opened the door for the Shepherd and allowed him inside, but closed it so quickly that Mikleo and Lailah got locked out. Sorey had a hard time not to laugh at his friends' misfortune.

"I am very sorry Shepherd Sorey," the maid, Lana was her name as Sorey learned earlier today, said. "But Princess Alisha has yet to return I am afraid. Will you be having dinner without her?"

"Ah, that's alright. I'll just wait for her to come back," Sorey replied.

"As you wish. May I offer you some tea and biscuits?"

"Sure. They were delicious. I could always go for more."

"I see. Please, make yourself comfortable. I will serve everything as soon as it is ready." Being the ever dutiful maid, Lana quickly made her way to the kitchen to prepare everything. Inside she found another maid, named Alana already inside and doing the dishes.

"Has Lady Alisha returned?" asked Alana.

"No, but the Shepherd has," Lana replied. "He wishes for some more tea and biscuits."

"I see. Hey, just between you and me, is it true what I heard?" the maid doing the dishes asked.

"Heard what?" Lana feigned ignorance, although she had a pretty good idea of what the human meant.

"The others told me that Alisha is already falling for the Shepherd!"

"Well, they have been holding hands…" The Hellion decided to add fuel to the fire. "In fact, I believe they have been holding hands until Alisha needed to go to the castle."

"Oh my gosh!" The human maid let out a squeal. "Our poor girl is finally growing up into a woman! And I have to admit, that's not a bad catch she has there."

"What, jealous? Aren't you married?" Lana asked Alana with a cheeky grin.

"Maybe a little bit," Alana admitted with a faint blush.

Lana in the meantime had finished preparing the tea-set and took it into her arms. "Don't let your husband hear you say that. He just might get jealous. Or me for that matter." With those words, Lana quickly moved out of the kitchen and carried the tray to the living room. The Shepherd must have opened the door for his Seraphim friends since the two were sitting in the living room along with the Shepherd. The male one looked slightly miffed, probably due to the maid's behavior earlier. Lana took the small victory, as for the moment this was all she could do against the Seraphim.


	14. Chapter 14

"Why am I doing this?" It wasn't the first time Velvet asked herself that question and she knew it would hardly be the last one either. Once again the Lord of Calamity found herself tempted to just throw away everything she worked on and just tackle her problems in a more direct approach. If things would have gone after her, she would be busy working on the fields or milking cows or go hunting, anything would have been fine as long as it would not include endless amounts of paperwork.

Velvet had always been a woman of action, not one of sitting around and reading papers all day long. Granted the only one responsible for her situation was herself and she was sure she was doing a fairly good job without resulting to intimidating her nay-sayers too much.

Still there was only so much she could endure being cooped up inside the castle. She needed to get out or else she knew she was going to lose her mind. Luckily for her she would get the perfect opportunity to get some much needed exercise. And that opportunity presented itself in the form of Bienfu.

By pure coincidence Velvet had left the door to her room slightly ajar, allowing the little normin to enter her chambers. The daemon could hear the door slightly creaking, as Bienfu pushed it open in order to enter the room. Velvet noted that the small Seraphim appeared to be very pleased with himself if his smug grin was anything to go by.

"Somebody is in a good mood," the Lord of Calamity noted, putting a feather away she had been holding in her hand. Bienfu easily jumped up the table and landed with a soft "plop" sound.

"Did you find anything?"

"Hehe, you bet I found something," the normin grinned toothily. "I've found out plenty of people who are involved in the elixir smuggling. Most of them are noble people who just don't know any better. But!" the normin emphasized the word, pointing a finger at Velvet. He then surprised the female demon, by putting his hand under his hand and pulling out a tiny scroll from within. "I have here a list of people who definitely know that they are doing something illegal."

The normin unfolded the list before moving on. "Here, I wrote them down in alphabetical order. Do you want me to read them to you?"

The daemon smiled in amusement, when she heard that her little spy went through all of the effort as to write the list of suspects in alphabetical order. No doubt this was some leftover indoctrination from her late friend Magilou.

"Wait a moment," Velvet quickly grabbed an empty parchment as well as her quill. "Okay."

For the next couple of minutes Velvet diligently wrote down every name that Bienfu read out loud from his own list. Sadly for her, she didn't recognize any of the names on the list and the reason for that became apparent when Bienfu explained himself.

"Those are the people that bring the fake elixir directly to the people who buy them. They get a decent amount of money to keep silent about what is going on. Originally the list was a little longer, but it turns out that the rest of them don't even know what they're carrying around."

"And who exactly are "them"?" Velvet asked, as she went over the list.

"Oh, you know. Guards, servants, maids, the usual people who can go around carrying boxes big and small without attracting any attention."

The Lord of Calamity grimaced. "Great. The chances of one of them having any useful information are pretty slim."

"Hehehe."

"Huh?" Velvet looked away from the list with a raised eyebrow, wondering why Bienfu was cackling like he did.

"Well luckily for you, we won't need to interrogate any of them. For you see, I found out that this evening there's supposed to be another shipment of elixir to arrive from outside the city."

The woman's eyes widened ever so slightly.

"I managed to overhear two men talking about it. Sadly I didn't get their names or found out where they lived. But I think I can find them again easily."

"How so?"

"Oh, they were invited to dinner to one of the noble houses, Hendricks, I think," the dark normin explained himself. "I bet this wasn't the only time they were invited to a noble house. From what I picked out of their conversation, it sounded like they had pretty good connections to at least some noble houses. Longtime trade relations or something like that."

The daemon put a hand under her chin, thinking. "Well, that at least somewhat narrows down the suspect list. Still I am not too familiar with the noble houses or the important merchants going around."

"You don't?" Bienfu asked. "But... isn't this kind of your job now?" he asked, tilting his head.

"I killed about half the nobles, when I decided to go through with this plan. Needless to say the rest of them weren't too eager to become my acquaintances."

Bienfu felt a beat of sweat rolling down the back of his head, as he remembered Velvet telling the story of just how she became an empress of all things. That's not to mention how she managed to "tame" Laphicet for the lack of a better term.

"Anyways, we can worry about those two later. You said there's going to be a shipment arriving today?"

The normin nodded. "There will be a cart that will be arriving fairly late in town. The guards have been bribed to let it into the city, despite the late hours."

"Tch, figures," the daemon woman scoffed and looked out of her window. Specifically, she was looking at the outer walls of her city in roughly the direction of where the gates were positioned. "Not that I can really expect any loyalty out of any of them, I guess. If I send any of the guards out, there's a good chance they'll simply ask for a few coins and leave the smugglers alone."

A small smile crept up on the daemon's face. "Well, I have been looking for an excuse to get out of this castle for a while now."

XXX

Velvet checked herself out in the mirror. She could feel the nostalgia swelling in her chest from seeing herself wearing those kind of clothes. Velvet had taken off her dress and high heels and replaced them respectively with a light red vest, black trousers and brown boots. Instead of the black glove made out of soft cloth, she had bandages wrapped around her arm. Her hair had been redone into a single, long ponytail. Velvet had briefly considered braiding it like she used to back in her teens, but in the end decided against it.

Tapping her foot onto the ground the daemon heard the satisfying sound of a tiny blade coming out of her boot. After putting it back in, Velvet walked over to her bed where a very familiar gauntlet was waiting for her. After attaching it to her arm, Velvet triggered the hidden mechanism, causing a blade to snap out of the hole. Giving it a quick inspection, the daemon retracted her blade and turned around.

"So, how do I look?" the daemon woman asked Bienfu, who was sitting on Velvet's bed. Said normin was looking at the woman in front of him with wide eyes.

"Wow! It's like you're a completely different person. And you look so young! Like a teenager if I'm honest."

Velvet smiled lightly. "That's the whole point. The way I am dressed now, everybody will think I am some farmer's daughter and not spare me a second glance. That in return means I can make my way through the city without attracting any unwanted attention."

"That's genius! But how do you plan to get out of the castle without anybody noticing?"

XXX

As it turned out, quite easily. Like any well build castle nowadays, Velvet's newly acquired one had at least three hidden passageways that led outside the city. Originally designed as a matter of escape for the ruling class, Velvet could use this passage to freely enter and exit the castle without anyone noticing. Sadly for her most of the tunnels were collapsed, probably due to low maintenance, as such all she could do was follow a very specific way, which she had memorized ever since she took over the castle in order to reappear in an unsuspecting alleyway.

Both daemon and normin could already hear the general commotion of the city going on outside, before exiting the tunnels. After Velvet made sure the wall door was locked securely, she made her way onto the street as if she was just another citizen. Bienfu for his part was sitting on Velvet's shoulder, taking a free ride.

Despite it being the evening with the sun already setting, there were still a lot of people on the streets and going after their daily routines. People selling their wares, guards on patrol and even some children playing on the side of the street. Since she still had some time to spare, Velvet decided to go into the next best inn she could find.

"What are we doing here?" Bienfu asked.

"Gathering information," Velvet whispered back. Knowing that none of the other people could see Bienfu, she kept her voice down in order as to not as appear as a crazy person.

"I have a general idea as to what the people think of me, but it would be good to know what exactly they think of me. Additionally, I might hear some things that usually don't reach my ears in the throne room."

The normin accepted the explanation and kept silent as Velvet made her way over to an empty table in the corner of the room. It didn't take long for a waitress to arrive at Velvet's table, which was slightly surprising, considering how much was going on. Still, it wasn't unwelcome.

"Good evening. You're new here aren't you?" the waitress asked.

"Yup," Velvet replied with a smile, trying to make her voice sound more akin to the personality she had before turning into a daemon. "My father sent me to the city to run a few errands. We're just humble farmers."

"I see," the waitress nodded. "Well whether you're a farmer or a merchant, you're equally welcome. So, what can I bring you?"

"Just a soup will be fine for me."

"Coming right up!" With those words the waitress left Velvet and Bienfu alone. The latter had taken a seat on the other end of the table. The daemon looked around for a little bit and was slightly surprised at what she saw.

"Everyone looks so happy," she said just loud enough for Bienfu to hear. "They're laughing, playing cards... huh. I honestly wasn't expecting this."

"Well, this is a bar," Bienfu pointed out. "People come here to forget about their troubles and just have some good old fashioned fun. They act differently outside."

Velvet looked at Bienfu. "And how do they act outside?"

"Well, that depends on where you ask." Bienfu looked around the room for a little, before speaking up again. "Everyday people like the ones here, they're confused. On the one hand they're terrified that a Hellion is now the ruler of their country. On the other hand, not much really changed for them. They still have to pay taxes, they still can do their daily chores and so on. Though, they do pray more often. At least that's the vibe I am getting."

"Well, at least there's something positive coming out of all of this," Velvet muttered. "The people are praying to the Empyreans once again. Even if it is in fear of me, it's at least something."

"Er, right." Bienfu shook his head. "It's very different for people of the noble class, however. They are very afraid. Especially since you took over the country singlehandedly and killed half of the ruling class and fear they might be next."

"I won't do anything to them. At least as long as they behave," the woman informed the normin.

"And... by behave you mean don't get in your way or they're gonna get eaten?"

"You know me so well."

"Too well, I think," Bienfu sweatdropped. He let out a small sigh before continuing. "And then there are the knights. They really hate you, but I guess you already knew that."

The normin interrupted himself, when the waitress brought Velvet her order. "Enjoy your meal," she told the daemon, before heading off to the next table, taking orders from other patrons.

"Anyways, I heard some of the knights talking very openly talking about overthrowing you. Normally I would tell you to be careful, but..." Bienfu sighed and shook his head. "It's not like the old days, where the common soldiers could get weapons enhanced by Seraphim. They can't really hurt you. Plus their captain is keeping them in check, for the time being anyway."

"Sergei is smart. He won't try anything without thinking it through properly. With that being said, he did underestimate me at first. He thought he could kill me by sending some assassins after me."

Bienfu didn't comment any further on the matter. Over the years he had forgotten how casual Velvet was when it came to killing other people. As he saw Velvet eat, he wondered if he should have asked the daemon if she could buy something to eat for him too. He was certainly growing an appetite, seeing all of those people enjoying their meals. He was about to ask Velvet to maybe get him something light, when he saw two particular people sitting on the other end of the room. The normin looked a bit harder, just to make sure, but there was no doubt about it. Those two men were guards, but not any guards. Those two were on the list he wrote down for Velvet. He particularly remembered this pair of men, because one of them had a big nose, while the other had a scar running through his face.

"I'll be right back," Bienfu said, before jumping off the table and running across the room. The disguised Lord of Calamity looked after her old friend curiously, until he reached the table of the two guards.

"And then she grabbed his neck with her arm, held him up and squeezed him with her fingers until his head popped off the rest of his body." The man telling the story shuddered. "His head rolled on the ground and you could still see the fear in his eyes."

"By the gods..." the other man shook his head and took a deep swing from his mug. "That idiot. He should have known better than to attack her. I don't know what kind of monster she is, but I have seen swords just breaking when they got swung against her very body."

The other man nodded. "I lost every single one of my comrades when she took over. Damn monster. And now we have to guard her? If there is a god out there, then he has a twisted sense of humor."

"Indeed," the man with the scar leaned back in his chair. "A demon ruling over a kingdom of humans. Sounds like a bad joke, if you ask me." He looked down inside his mug. "Unfortunately for us, it has become reality."

"Well, not for much longer," the man with the big nose argued. "With how we're getting paid on our... side-job... it's only a matter of time until we have gathered enough money to make a living outside of this thrice damned kingdom."

"You're right. Let's just hope our heads stay attached to our bodies until that time comes."


	15. Chapter 15

Since Sorey and the others didn't really have much to do, except to wait for Sorey to finally recover from his wounds, the trio continued their exploration through the city. Naturally, both Sorey and Mikleo were curious not only about the city but also other topics. Like for example the subject of other Shepherds. However, as it turned out there wasn't really much the female Seraphim could talk about. As it turned out, she had made an oath, which forbids her from talking about certain things. In return, the oath granted her certain powers, like the power to purify hellions for example. Lailah couldn't say it outright, the only thing she had been capable of saying was that she made an oath. Mikleo then asked if one of the rewards of the oath was the power of purification, to which Lailah pointed at a random direction and commented on how cute the butterfly was. Only there had never been a butterfly in the first place.

As the group went on, it just so happened to overhear a group of workers. As it turned out, one of their colleagues didn't show up for roll-call and was now missing. He was supposed to be working in an underground waterway. The trio decided to head straight there and see if they couldn't help somehow or at least check if the worker was okay.

The entrance wasn't hard to find. It was an old, wooden door that obviously had seen better days. The moisture both from the lake and the waterway had done its fair share of damage on it. It opened very easily, even if it creaked very loudly. As soon as the trio entered the underground, both Mikleo and Sorey almost stumbled, due to a certain feeling both were getting.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Lailah asked in a rhetorical fashion.

Sorey took a second to catch himself and nodded. "I can. There's definitely strong malevolence coming from the center of town."

"I must say, your ability is indeed impeccable," Lailah complimented. "It looks like you're acclimating to your power already, far faster than I'd even imagined."

"I am?" Sorey asked with some doubt and hope in his voice.

Lailah nodded. "The day when you will come into the true power of the Shepherd is not far off."

"What kind of power is that?" Mikleo asked in genuine curiosity.

However, Lailah didn't give a real answer. She pretended to be stumbling and said: "Oh, sorry about that. You were saying?"

The two boys understood the message immediately. Lailah simply couldn't tell them what the true power was just yet, despite Sorey already being so "close" to unlocking it. Although the fire Seraphim hadn't exactly given the two any kind of time measurement.

"Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough," the water Seraph said with a sigh.

"Yup," Sorey just nodded along.

The inside of the underground waterworks turned out to be in way better condition than the entrance door let to believe. Sure there was some moss growing here and there, but those things couldn't be avoided. A staircase right in front of the trio led further down. To the left, they could see the river flowing through the sewers. The sound of the rushing waters echoed throughout the entire system. The further the group went downstairs, the louder the general noise became. It wasn't deafening, but if they wanted to talk, they would have to raise their voices.

The channel led them around a right corner, behind which a horrifying sight awaited them. A pile of sticky, blue and purple mass appeared to be chewing on a human that was stuck inside said mass. If one looked closely, the hole appeared to be in the rough shape of a mouth.

"It's a hellion!" Sorey realized. "Get back!" he shouted, gesturing with his arms towards Mikleo.

"No way!" Mikleo immediately replied. The Seraphim even went as far as to position himself in front of Sorey, staff at the ready. "You're injured! There's no way you can fight it off!"

"But, you can't fight a hellion!" Sorey argued.

"And you can with your injured shoulder?" Mikleo argued back.

Any further arguments were interrupted by the hellion making its way surprising quickly towards the group. Apparently it didn't like having its meal interrupted by loud noises.

"Burning Wings!" Lailah shouted and waved her arms in front of her. Just as she announced, two feathered wings made out of fire appeared in the air and slammed down on the Hellion like a pair of fists. The force must have been considered, as the hellion was send skidding across the ground and a considerable distance away. Lailah, now standing in front of the two males, turned towards the two boys and said. "Umm, how about I handle the hellion, for now? It's just one, so it should be okay."

Both boys looked at each other with a frown. Mikleo knew that all he could do was maybe push the hellion back, but not seriously injure it. He lacked the power of purification for this. At the same time, Sorey couldn't fight since his sword arm was unavailable to him and he had never learned to fight with his other one.

"It's not like we have much choice," Mikleo eventually said, eyeing the hellion carefully. The creature appeared to be really angry now and was making its way to the group once again, creating slurping noises as it advanced.

"Are you sure you will be fine?" he asked.

"Don't worry, I can keep my distance." As if to emphasize her point, Lailah turned around and threw slips of paper at the advancing creature. Said papers ignited into flames, once they came into contact with the enemy.

"Wait! Aren't you hurting the man inside of that thing?" Sorey asked, having one arm extended towards the fire Seraphim.

"Don't worry, the bodies of slimes absorb most of the trauma inflicted upon them. The hellion will long collapse before I can accidentally hurt the man."

"That's good to know. Can you keep it away?" The human asked.

Lailah simply nodded and focused on the hellion. She extended both arms and gathered magic in her hands. Two balls of fire began to form inside her balms, growing at a steady pace. Mikleo and Sorey involuntarily took a step back, when they felt the heat on their skin. While she was charging up her magic, the hellion came uncomfortably close, something the boys didn't miss.

"Uh... Lailah?"

"Burn away!" she shouted and shot both fireballs at her opponent. The hellion was engulfed in flames, causing its body to shake in pain. Its mouth was wide open, making it seem like it want to scream. But the only sound that came out was some sort of gurgling and bubbling noise.

"Are you sure this won't hurt the human inside?" Mikleo asked in a slight panic.

He found his question answered quickly by the slime collapsing in front of the trio, the liquid dissolving into thin air. Left behind was the human lying face down on the ground. Seeing as the danger was gone, Sorey and Mikleo quickly approached the human and turned him around. The man was wet, sticky, but none the less alive. There weren't any obvious injuries on the human, nor bite marks or anything.

"It looks like we were just in time," Sorey breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sorey?" Lailah spoke up.

"Yes, Lailah?" he asked back.

"He won't believe you if you tell him he was attacked by a hellion," the Seraphim explained. "Remember, humans can't perceive hellions or seraphim."

"She's right," Mikleo nodded. "You should probably tell him he was holding on to a ledge or something," the water seraphim explained, gesturing at the river behind him. "Tell him you pulled him out. That should be enough."

"Alright. Shouldn't he be awake by now?" the Sheppard asked in concern.

"Give him a minute or two. He probably didn't get enough air while he was stuck inside the hellion," Lailah explained.

"Let's lean him against the wall," Sorey decided and with the help of Mikleo, the two pulled the man's body across the floor and leaned him against the wall. Mikleo then took the chance to look further down the way and frowned. He too could feel the malevolence inside the ruins and it was unusually strong. There were probably more hellions waiting for them, should they decide to go further down.

"Mikleo?" Sorey's voice brought the Seraphim out of his thoughts and back to reality.

"What is it?" he asked in return and was slightly confused when he saw the conflicted expression on the human's face.

"Look, I know you want to help out, but you can't fight hellions. You'd only needlessly endanger yourself."

Mikleo clenched a fist after hearing that. "That coming from you?" he replied in an almost taunting fashion. "If I remember correctly, you're the one who went charging at a hellion assassin, after getting injured."

"That was...!" Different was what Sorey wanted to say, but even he had to admit that had been a stupid move. Because of that he was stuck with the injury on his shoulder. "Still" he amended his words "that doesn't mean you need to repeat my mistakes."

Mikleo scoffed at that. "Look at you acting all wise all of a sudden." Before Sorey could retort to that comment, the water Seraphim turned towards his fire counterpart. "Lailah, is there any way I could use the power of purification as well?" Mikleo tried not to sound pleading, but didn't really manage it completely.

"Mikleo..." Sorey mumbled.

As if having expected that question to come sooner or later, Lailah answered immediately with one raised finger. "There is one way." Her voice had taken on a stern tone and she was giving both boys a hard look. "You could become a Sub Lord and place your power alongside mine. And like me, you would need to dwell inside Sorey, my vessel."

By dwelling inside Sorey, she was referring to the times where she turned into a speck of light and disappeared into Sorey's body. It had proven incredibly useful when walking through the crowded city, although the fire Seraphim hadn't used this power much, as she was using the chance to stretch her legs.

"I'll do it," Mikleo answered with determination, grabbing Lailah's hand.

"No, hold on now!" Sorey intervened. "You need to think about this first!"

"I need to think about this? Do I need to once again remind you how you sustained that injury on your shoulder? Or how about the time where out of nowhere you decided to become a Shepherd!" Mikleo pointed an accusatory finger at Sorey.

"That was completely different! Is purifying hellions your life dream?"

"Are you really expecting me to sit on the sidelines and watch as you get yourself killed?!" Mikleo suddenly exploded, shocking both Sorey and Lailah. The water Seraphim took a step forward until he was face to face with his childhood friend. "Do you really think I haven't already thought this through?! Do you know how useless I felt when my Artes were not enough to heal you?! Face it, Sorey, you need all the help you can get! Last time it was just your shoulder! What is it going to be the next time?! Your arm?! Leg?! Your head?!"

After having shouted those final two words, Mikleo needed to catch his breath. Sorey in the meantime was stunned to silence. A part of the human was saying that his Seraph friend was being hysterical and needed to calm down. The other part of him however saw the pain in Mikleo's eyes and heard it as well in the Seraph's voice.

The new Shepherd found himself torn. On the one hand, he wanted to protect his longest friend. On the other hand, he didn't want to upset Mikleo further, partially because the water Seraph almost drowned him on accident the last time it happened.

Luckily for Sorey the time to make his decision was delayed thanks to the man they saved earlier finally waking up. He let out groans of pain, getting everyone's attention. Sorey immediately knelt down right next to the man, ignoring Mikleo's ominous: "This isn't over."

"Urgh... where... where am I?" the man asked, looking around with unfocused eyes. His gaze fell eventually on Sorey. "Shepherd?"

"How are you feeling? Does anything hurt?" Sorey asked with worry.

"I feel sore all over..." the man replied with a groan. "What happened? Those are..." the man looked around. "Yes, we're underground. I was send here to... to..."

Sorey shook his head. "Well, I don't know why you were here, but your friends are missing you. They said you didn't appear for roll call. I went down here and found you in the riverbed." Sorey pointed towards the water. "You were clinging onto the surface with dear life. To be honest, you almost drowned."

"Is that so...?" The man looked down on himself and noticed the soaked clothes. "Thank you, Shepherd. I... I owe you my life."

Sorey nodded. "Don't worry about it. I just did what everyone would have done. We should probably get you outside, before you catch a cold. Can you stand up?"

With his uninjured arm, Sorey helped the man back up onto his feet. Seeing as the man was pretty shaky on his legs, Sorey decided to escort him to the outside. Making sure the man didn't fall over or slipped on the wet floor, the Shepherd held his arms at the ready, just in case. It turned out to be unnecessary, as the two of them managed to get out without any troubles. Lailah decided this time to go and reside inside Sorey's body for the time being. Mikleo of course had to stay outside.

The workmen were naturally relieved when they saw their friend return to them in relative good health. Relative being the keyword, seeing as their friend was somewhat unsteady on his feet. Not to mention he was also thoroughly soaked to the bone. The lead man ordered one of the workers to bring their friend home, in order for him to recover. After having given the order, he turned his attention to Sorey.

"Thank you, Shepherd. I don't want to imagine what would have happened if you hadn't been there."

"It was no problem, really. I was just lucky to have overheard you earlier and decided to take a look," Sorey answered. "I just pray your friend will feel better soon enough."

"Yeah, me too. Once again, thank you. Maybe we should build some guard rails for the next time one of us needs to go down there. The moisture there makes the ground always so slippery."

"Yeah, I noticed," the Shepherd nodded. "Out of curiosity, what was he doing there alone?"

"Oh, he was just checking that no driftwood was piling up. It can do a surprising amount of damage to the canals, despite being so fragile. However, checkups like these usually don't take too long and don't require a second set of eyes. Well, guess that one taught all of us a lesson. I'll have to send a second person in there next time, just in case something like this happens again."

"I guess that would be for the best," Sorey nodded. "Have a good day."

"You too, Shepherd."

The man and boy nodded to each other, before going their separate ways. Sorey could hear the head worker shouting instructions to the remaining men.

Once Sorey and Mikleo were somewhat away in a side street, Mikleo decided to speak up. "If they send more men down there, chances are they will meet more hellions. Given the amount of malevolence that was down there..." Mikleo trailed off.

"Yeah..." Sorey nodded and leaned against the wall behind him. "But it's not like I can tell them not to go down there. The best way to help them would be to go down ourselves and deal with the hellions. But that is currently not possible."

"Not for you it isn't," Mikleo nodded. "However, Lailah is a different story. And if I were to become a sub lord, I could help out too."

Sorey bit his lip. He had hoped Mikleo wouldn't push the subject so soon. But inwardly he had already known Mikleo would want an answer as soon as possible. He just knew his best friend too well.

"If I may interject," Lailah appeared out of Sorey's body, right next to the two boys. "How about we give Sorey some time to make his decision. You may have made up your mind Mikleo, but I think it's only fair to give Sorey some time to think as well. As he is currently injured, he will of course not run head over heels into the next fight, will he?"

Mikleo eyed his fellow Seraphim for a moment, before letting out a sigh. "Fine. But don't take too long."

"H-Hey, don't pressure me." Sorey held up his arms and flinched when he accidentally moved his injured one into the wrong position. Mikleo shook his head, seeing his friend accidentally hurting himself.


End file.
